


a day in the life of her hurricane

by blacknaruto



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Black/Biracial Naruto, Blatant Disregard Of Canon After Valley of the End, Byronic Hero Sasuke, Byronic Heroes & Heroines, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fascism, Female Uzumaki Naruto, Imperialism, Murphy's Law, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Psychic Bond, Revolution, Revolutionaries, Rivals to Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Romance, Romanticism, Self-Indulgent, Semi-Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Unreliable Narrator, War, Worldbuilding, attempt at politics, gothic horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:54:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 70,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26628607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacknaruto/pseuds/blacknaruto
Summary: Reaching the top of the tree is an almost liberating moment. To have finally mastered something and in such a short time.It was a small step but a step closer to his goal nonetheless.  He knows it’s the same for her as well, with the way she smiles at the moon as it smiles back at her. A breathless laugh on her lips, the relieved and happy kind of laugh. He stares and stares and feels something stir in his chest.That kindred between kith and kin.(He’d seen it once, with Shisui and…)Two lonely children with dreams. And he dares hope that maybe he can allow himself this one companion, just this once.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruko, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 70
Kudos: 213





	1. the encounter in the woods; and so it begins

She recalls the first time she met him. She’d been five years old, just shy of six. 

It was a warm spring day. The forest floor had been wet with yesterday’s rainfall, the smell of rich earth heady in her nostrils, and the taste of petrichor thick in the air, clinging to her throat. 

She recalls this day, not because of him, not entirely, but because it was the last day she’d worn her hair long. She’d taken a sharp kunai and cut clean through the bright golden locks, watched as they fell gracefully into her bathroom sink like shards of sunlight. 

It was the last day she’d let anyone gain an advantage on her in a fight because of something as silly as hair. 

Once it had been her pride, her vanity, as it is for all women and girls. It was a peculiar shade of blonde, more lively and precious than most. Long and curly, it grew quickly and endlessly. It hadn’t mattered that it was more unruly than all the other girls or that the kids picked at her about how wild and untamed and different it was.

(Different like the dark shade of her skin and the marks on her face and her striking, almost foreign features).

Though the thought of rough fingers yanking at her scalp, dragging her down into the mud, twisting her about like a ragdoll, had made her want to claw her hair out with her bare hands. 

He had come to her rescue, like a thief in the night. Far more talented than some playground bullies, far more talented than her. His strikes were as quick and sudden as lightning, and just as lethal in her young mind. The boys had scattered into the forest, properly bruised and humiliated at being bested by a boy half their age. He’d stood tall and proud as they ran, his shadow stretching ten feet tall in the afternoon sun, even if he was four-foot one. A little smirk had graced his lips before his eyes landed on her, brimming with concern.

He’d reached out to her long before she’d ever reached out to him. 

When he’d been young and sweet, brave and naive, emulating the supposed heroism of his eldest brother. 

He reached out to her, hand ready to comfort the roughed up little girl. The pitiful sight she must have made. Clothing torn and stretched from being pulled, hair tangled and knotted, scrapes on her elbows and knees and whiskered cheeks, streaks of salty tears leaving trails of clear skin on her dirty face. But none could compare to the wounds that’d been inflicted on her mind, her soul, breaking her spirit just a little bit more, chipping away at her confidence and pride. Because words, she had learned, were powerful things, especially to a child, and no fist could compare to the lethal blows a single word could wreak. _Demon,_ they had called her. It’s what everyone called her, in hushed voices and harsh whispers.

(and she was so different, looked so different from everyone else, how could she not be a demon?)

The boy reached out to her, ready to comfort. She smacked his hand away with renewed strength, eyes glistening with fresh tears, the angry kind (the embarrassed and confused kind), as she glared at him. Mustering up all the hate and rage in her little heart until it pooled through, bright in her eyes like a fanned flame. Not for him, not really, but for the situation. For being so helpless, for needing someone to save her instead of saving herself, for not being strong enough to save herself. He flinched, all the same, looking hurt and uncertain (unbeknownst to her back then, he was alone and isolated too. An Uchiha, with those devil red eyes and supposed manipulative nature. No one really wanted them around either.) back when he wore his feelings on his sleeve, back when he could afford to.

Upon seeing his hurt, she’d bit the inside of her cheek, hating herself just a little bit more. Because even when someone was trying to help her, she lashed out. Maybe everyone was right about her, maybe she didn’t deserve kindness.

She’d ducked her head, ashamed. The Old Man would be so disappointed if he knew she’d been mean to someone who helped her. 

“I didn’t ask for your help, dattebayo!” she’d choked out over sobs, and then promptly ran away, sprain ankle and all.

* * *

Sasuke doesn’t see the little girl again. 

Next spring, a blonde boy with a choppy haircut and a goofy grin enrolls in the Academy, and he duly notes the boy has peculiar whisker-like birthmarks on his sun-kissed cheeks (and that his face is a little too angelic, lips a bit too full, lashes a tad too long for a boy. And he’s short, almost as short as that Hyuga girl.). 

He shrugs it off with careless oblivion, even if the encounter in the forest still stings. It was bad enough that the villagers, teachers, and even some classmates were wary of him, but he’d thought that if...that maybe if he showed he was kind that maybe…

It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is his big brother Itachi, and catching up with him, so they can train together. So father can finally take him seriously, see that he’s just as good as his brother, that he could and would make the Uchiha clan proud. Even if he was the youngest, the spare, the second son, the little brother, Itachi’s little brother (always in the shadow and never in his own light). 

He knew he could do it. Through hard work and perseverance. Already it was starting to work. His father had been disappointed at first when Sasuke barely managed to perform their family acclaimed fire technique. After all, Itachi had mastered it on his first try. But Sasuke had been relentless in his training, practicing even in his free time, until the sun sank below the horizon and night became day again in short bursts of fire that sprouted from his (burned) mouth. 

His mother teased him every time he dragged himself home before placing ointments on his tiny little lips singed with first degree burns. But his triumph was worth the embarrassment, his efforts rewarded with his father’s acknowledgment. 

The approval makes him feel warm inside, and all is right in his little world. Even if Itachi is slowly drifting away from it, and father and Itachi are drifting away from each other, and his mother’s fine dark hair is beginning to gray from all the stress of being stuck in the middle of their quarrel.

All is right in his little world. Until it simply isn’t. 

He’d thought that his world had revolved around catching up with Itachi, besting Itachi, and now Itachi is all he has. Too stupid and naive and foolish to not see everything else that was important and precious until it was gone. No longer will he feel his mother’s warm hands tending to his scraps and burns, no longer will he see pride shine in his father’s eyes. Or be set upon by dotting uncles, aunts, and cousins, pinching his cheeks and ruffling his hair. 

That Man is all he thinks about. In every waking moment, in every horrid restless night, dreams shrouded in betrayal and blood (so much blood. He smells it even in his dreams, and doesn't think he’ll ever be rid of the putrid smell of blood and cooling corpses.) and Itachi, standing in darkness yet larger than life, untouchable and lethal. A deadly creature. Blood red eyes peering into his soul from the shadows, encroaching upon his already scarred and battered mind by pulling him into an endless night of terror. Over and over and over again. Death would have been kinder. 

Suddenly the teachers are more kind, condolences stirring on the tongue, the classmates transfixed upon his person (and he finally has a light of his own, with the world in his shadow but at what cost? What’s the point of being the best when there is nothing to compete with?), the villagers shooting him pitiful gazes (most of them anyway. There are still those who are wary. Waiting for him to crack and go on a murderous rampage like That Man. Madness seems to run strong in the Uchiha family.) and it’s enough to make him shut the world out.

It’s hard to do that, however, when there’s a blonde idiot always in his peripheral. Whenever he’s in a daze, stewing in his darkest thoughts, you can count on the idiot to barge his way in, disrupting those thoughts. It irks Sasuke to no end. 

How can someone be that distracting? Not even his vapid fangirls can chip at his cold exterior, but whenever that blonde idiot is involved his resolve crumbles and the ice melts away until there is nothing but fire. Angry words spat in the heat of the moment and bruised fist landing on a sun-kissed jaw during classroom spars. The idiot never stays down though. Only smiles through bloodied teeth and proclaims for all to hear, that “You just got lucky, dattebayo!” and “One of these days I’m going to kick your ass!” (much to Iruka-sensei’s mortification) and the idiot’s personal favorite “Stop calling me a loser! One day I’m gonna become Hokage and then you’ll have to acknowledge me!”.

That one really gets under his skin. Because he used to be the same way. Chasing after acknowledgment and approval. Back when he was the _foolish little brother._ He hates it, hates remembering the endless nights of practicing his clan’s Jutsu, approval lighting his father’s eyes, a ghost of a smile on his lips, thinking things were going to be different.

He- _he hates Naruto_.

That fool. Sasuke isn’t blind. He sees the way the teachers look at the blonde boy with thinly veiled disgust and hatred, sees the way other students shy away from him, sees the way civilian parents scoff and sneer at the boy whenever he makes his way to the academy. And yet the idiot takes it all in stride, rolls with it how he rolls with the blows Sasuke lands on him without mercy. 

Smiling, laughing, playing stupid pranks. _Everyone hates you,_ he wants to say. _What reason do you have to laugh, to smile, to play around?_

Sasuke doesn’t admit it, not until much later in his life when he is wiser and older, but he was jealous. Happiness isn’t something he’s felt in a while, smiles are rare, and they’re usually the devious haughty kind and not the warm bright ones that Naruto gives freely. 

Despite everything, Naruto is happy (it makes Sasuke want to be happy). The poor, lonely orphan boy who everyone hates is happy and kind, even to those who aren’t kind to him (especially Iruka who used to be right in league with the rest of his colleagues until somehow Naruto wore him down.) and it’s just-

It’s enough to make Sasuke want to punch a wall. He does, several times (wishing desperately that it was the idiot's face instead), and knows the idiot is rubbing off on him because he definitely feels it the next day and curses himself for his rashness. 

What’s even more infuriating is that Sasuke knows that most of the time it’s an act. That sometimes the insults cut too deep, no matter how hard Naruto smiles. Sasuke knows pain, knows it well, and knows how to spot it in others. Knows how to spot sadness and loneliness, and yes, anger too, brief little flashes of it that make the blonde’s eyes grow cold (not hot, like Sasuke’s) with righteous indignation. As fleeting and brisk as the wind. 

The thing that sets them apart, however, is that the idiot still reaches out when Sasuke has become well accustomed to pushing away, even before the Massacre. 

  
The _foolish little boy_ still wants acceptance from the very people who despise his existence. What self-respecting person would do that? Clearly the other boy has no respect for himself, so Sasuke doesn't respect him either. He _doesn't._


	2. river deep; mountain high

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At first, there were many Uchiha to look at. Their dark hair and dark eyes and pale skin used to betray their lineage. Some of them were even well on their way to graduating from the Academy. The older ones used to walk around in their uniforms branded with a star, patrolling every street in Konoha. Now there is all but one left, and he’s just a little boy, who will probably never wear that uniform. 
> 
> It must be strange for him, she thinks, to be alone all of a sudden.

After the incident in the forest, Naruto cuts off all her hair and leaves it in a choppy uneven mess before starting the academy. 

The Old Man is rightfully horrified (and silently mourning the loss of innocence. And her hair. It really was nice and was so reminiscent of her mother’s own legendary hair.) but Naruto doesn’t care. As long as no one else puts their sticky, unforgiving fingers in her hair she’s _fine_. There have been too many close calls, too many instances where her hair proved to be a great disadvantage because her foe’s felt they could (and well, did) pull on her hair to gain the upper hand. She swears to herself that the moment she is stronger (the moment she feels safe) she’ll let it grow out. Until then, she’ll be cutting it. She takes a kunai to it every fortnight because it grows so damn fast and she’s one hundred percent sure that that’s not normal. Like at all.

And yeah she looks like a (pretty) boy but well, it’s a small price to pay! Besides, some offenders were becoming too bold, their intentions a little too malicious for her liking, and her secret masked guards never seem to be around when that type of stuff happens. In fact, their presence in her life grows less and less as she gets older. 

It’s easier being a boy, and she hopes that if she keeps dressing like one, talking like one, and acting like one then everyone will forget she’s a girl.

They’ll think she’s a more capable fighter and think twice before attacking her. Which they should because she’s strong. Or at least she’s trying to be. She’s always training with her taijutsu and has most of the academy ninjutsu down, except for that cursed bunshin! But she’s trying, even if she only has Iruka-sensei to help her out (when he has the time) and old rusted kunai to practice with. 

Let the bastard tell it she’s just a sore loser, and everyone else agrees. And yet she’s the only one who can last more than ten seconds in a fight against him. Something about stamina, which she guesses she has a lot of. 

To think the cold aloof bastard was once the sweet boy that’d swooped in to save the day at the risk of his own safety, against boys twice his size and senior, for her, Naruto Uzumaki. The person that no one _ever_ helps unless they’re ordered to by the Old Man. Granted, she pushed him away, being the confused little kid she was, but the sentiment never left her even as she grew older, and during her most lonely nights, she thinks about that moment.

That hand reaching out to _her_ , dark eyes _concerned_ about her. Wonders what would have happened if she’d just taken his hand instead of being a brat. They probably would have become friends and she probably would have been less alone in the world. He probably would have been less alone too.

Being the bastard that he now is, he probably doesn’t even remember and she’d sooner bite her tongue off than confront him about it. Not to mention she’d been Naruto Uzumaki, the girl with long blonde hair at the time, and not the blonde-haired ‘boy’ she was now.

Now he is mean and cruel, arrogant, and rude, even to those who clearly care about him. She’d kill (well, not _really_ ) to have that kind of attention showered upon her. The only time she gets attention is when she pulls pranks on well-deserving prey. Like that one teacher who sneered at her and called her a hopeless idiot, while the other teachers had readily agreed. The next day she’d woken up early and snuck into the teachers’ lounge with a bottle of ink she’d stolen from the storage room and poured it in the coffee machine. Needless to say that coffee had woken them right the hell up and they sported ink-stained teeth for the rest of the day (poor Iruka had been caught in the crossfire but well, sacrifices and all that) and thought twice about saying stuff like that in front of her. Didn’t stop the nasty glares though, but what can you do?

She knows that someday she’ll be stronger. Knows that the naysayers and doubters will be eating their own words, including Sasuke. Especially Sasuke (she just doesn’t know how right she is until much later and she isn’t all that happy about it either.).

* * *

It’s been six months since she’s been Naruto the boy instead of Naruto the girl. Since then she’s grown a little taller and her seventh birthday rapidly approaches. Once she turns seven, she’ll be able to officially enroll in the Ninja Academy, something that she awaits with growing anticipation. 

Some people recognize her, and some people have gone so long without acknowledging her existence that they don’t notice nor do they care about her sudden shift in appearance.

So, she spends her days sparing by herself in the woods, stealing old rusted kunai and shuriken from training grounds, and idly catching frogs and butterflies when she grows bored of that. 

She’s even started to take plants home, eager to watch them grow (and prove to herself that if she could give something life then maybe she wasn’t all that bad). 

She still thinks about the little Uchiha boy who saved her in the woods and feels guilt whenever she thinks about how she treated him. He’d only been trying to help, even said as much, did she really need to go and yell at him like that?

_I’m so stupid,_ she mumbles to herself idly.

She mumbles the same thing to herself six months later after starting the Academy. He’s there, because of course, he is, but he doesn’t recognize her, barely looks her way. There were times when she’d wanted to walk up to him, apologize and maybe even thank him for fighting off those bullies. Not many people would have done that, she knows. The only time anyone ever helps her is if Old Man Hokage orders them to. And she may not be smart, but she’s knowledgeable enough to know that that’s not true or genuine help, if you have to be ordered to do it instead of doing it simply because it’s the right thing to do. But she loses her courage to talk to him every time.

The Naka River is cold in the autumn, it’s unforgiving chill pierces the soles of her feet until they grow numb. She takes the white bar of ivory soap and scrubs at her clothes. She would have done this at home or the local laundromat, but she’s already spent half her stipend on new shoes, food, and school supplies, and it’s only a quarter into the school year. The river has always been her automatic go-to whenever she’s been down on her luck. If she needs food she can fish in it, if she needs water she can drink it, and if she’s ever lonely the river frogs have always made good company. 

She’s washing out her only white shirt in its clear waters when plumes of red rush forth. It’s a sudden thing, enough to scare her and make her fall on her butt. Some of the water gets in her mouth as she screams and it tastes like iron. It’s the most disgusting thing she’s ever tasted. 

She forgets about washing her clothes, throwing the still soapy heaps into her basket before running away. 

The next day, the whole village is talking about the Uchiha Massacre, even the kids at the Academy. It’s in hushed voices and frantic whispers, but she hears it all the same. She’s always had good hearing. No one was spared, they say, not even the children or the babes. All save one Sasuke Uchiha.

* * *

It’s a strange thing when he returns to the Academy. After two weeks of absence, he’s become almost a mythical figure, to have survived such a tragedy. Everyone stares, without even meaning to. Watches as he walks blankly to his desk, a desk that collected a fine layer of dust. 

When he sits down the motion doesn’t even disturb it. 

It must feel strange for him, she thinks, being singled out like that, the center of everyone’s undivided attention. 

At first, there were many Uchiha to look at. Their dark hair and dark eyes and pale skin used to betray their lineage. Some of them were even well on their way to graduating from the Academy. The older ones used to walk around in their uniforms branded with a star, patrolling every street in Konoha. Now there is all but one left, and he’s just a little boy, who will probably never wear that uniform. 

It must be strange for him, she thinks, to be alone all of a sudden.

* * *

Iruka-sensei practically drags her to class after her latest shenanigans, grumbling about how it’s not even past twelve o'clock yet. Acrylic paint stains her fingers and clothes, and a shameless grin is on her face spreading from cheek to cheek.

The whole class laughs when they see her, and she’s so proud of her latest prank that she doesn’t care about the fact that they’re laughing at her, not with her.

She plops down into her seat and starts picking off the paint from beneath her fingernails until lunch. The class is dismissed at twelve-thirty and the kids file out to reach the schoolyard. 

Before she can so much as rise from her seat Iruka-sensei pushes her back down in it and says, “I don’t think so Naruto. Detention.”

She splutters, naturally, but then sighs defeatedly at Iruka-sensei’s no-nonsense face. She hated it when he made that face. It meant that he meant business and that she was in trouble for real this time. Her stomach growls and she smiles at him sheepishly, “Can you get me some lunch? Pretty please, Iruka-sensei!”

He shakes his head, “Honestly Naruto. You know what, alright, “ he concedes, because he always does. She’s starting to think he has a soft spot for her. “But you better be seated right here where I left you when I come back.”

“I promise, I won’t leave this seat,” she does a little salute, topped off with a wide-mouthed grin. “Won’t move an inch, dattebayo!”

“Hm, we’ll see.”

Iruka-sensei leaves the classroom and the door closes with a soft thud. The wait would be a bit longer if he went to Ichiraku’s, it was always packed around this time, but it would definitely be worth it. She could already taste the miso broth and tasty tender pork wrapped snugly in soft noodles. She’d save the fishcake for last. Her stomach growled loudly. Man, she was hungry. 

She’s always been a hungry child, for as long as she could remember, so much so that she’s forgotten exactly what it was that she had a taste for. Then she remembers the orange she stuffed in her pocket that morning and retrieves it. Oranges were only second to ramen, in her opinion. She’s even started growing some on her small balcony. 

It smells so sweet and sour, and the process of peeling an orange gave her something to do with her fidgety hands. The skin is a bit soft but that means it’s easier to peel. Her nail breaks the skin and juice squirts onto her thumb, wetting the dry paint there. Maybe she should wash her hands. Then again Iruka-sensei said not to leave so… she shrugs and pushes her nail further until a thick layer of the skin rises and falls onto her desk. She repeats this process until the orange is bare. Licking her chapped lips, she bites right into it, instead of breaking off pieces as a normal person would or so Iruka-sensei says. When little bits of pulp gets stuck between her teeth she sucks them out, and when the juices pour she slurps on them, leaving her mouth sticky.

Naruto doesn't stop until she feels someone staring at her, a pair of eyes burning holes into the side of her head. This isn’t an unfamiliar sensation but it is an uncomfortable one. She turns slowly, very slowly toward the perpetrator, and meets heated black eyes.

She jumps, startled by the intensity of them and who they belonged to. Sasuke Uchiha. She hadn’t even noticed he was still in here. He didn't look away either, just soldiered on with his blatant staring, a frown marring his face. And people called her rude, huh!

Naruto grimaced at him. “What the hell is your problem, asshole!” 

Usually, people stared at her when she did something to warrant their staring or simply because they didn't like her, but she didn't think he’d be one of those people. She’s done nothing to him! 

He grated out a barely intelligible ‘irritating’, his fit clenching so tightly his skin stretched white over his knuckles. 

Naruto scoffed. “Well screw you too, jerk!”

“Naruto!” Iruka-sensei chose that moment to walk in (because of course, he did!) and immediately began to chastise her rude behavior. 

.

.

She slurped angrily on her noodles.

“What’s your problem with Sasuke?”

And then she choked angrily on her noodles. “I don’t have a problem. He started it, not me!”

Iruka-sensei folded his arms and gave her a disbelieving look. She hated that look, especially when she was telling the truth. “Why do I find that hard to believe Naruto.”

“But it’s true!” she argued. “I was just sitting there like you told me to, minding my own business, and then he just started staring at me. Then he called me irritating!”

Iruka-sensei thought for a moment and then chuckled. Naruto couldn’t find the humor in this. 

“Well, is he wrong?”

“Hey! You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“Now, now Naruto,” he appeased. “I’m only joking.” he sighed, scratching his chin. “Listen, you have to understand, Sasuke has been through a lot. You heard about what happened to him last autumn, didn’t you?”

Naruto bit her lip mulishly. “...yeah.” 

“Exactly, Sasuke may come off as mean and closed off, but it’s not without reason. Just try to be the bigger person, Naruto.”

“Yeah, well I guess he’s not that bad,” she admitted and then piped up to add, “You know he saved me once!”

Iruka smiled gently, lifting a curious brow. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, from some bullies,” then she quickly soured. “Uh, but it was so irritating. I hate being saved like some weakling. I can protect myself, dattebayo! And if I can’t then maybe I deserve the beating, so next time I can be better. Still, it was...I guess it was nice of him to do that.”

“Have you ever tried thanking him?” Iruka suggested.

Naruto freezes and then promptly scratches the back of her head with a sheepish smile. “I tried but it didn’t work out.”

“Naruto…”

“No, I did, I swear!” she waves her hands about frantically as if to dissuade him of his disbelief with flailing arms alone. “But he’s so hard to approach. And then his fangirls swarm him and there’s no getting past them. Besides, he probably doesn't even remember. It was so long ago.” and why does that make her feel so sad?

“You remember, Naruto,” Iruka supplied calmly. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“Of course I remember! I’d never felt so weak! While he was so-” she struggled to find the words and Iruka watched as her face flushed with embarrassment. “So strong! And ugh, he’s still strong. How am I ever going to surpass him.” she finished dejectedly, folding her arms with a little pout.

Iruka caught onto that last bit. “Surpass him?” 

Most girls created elaborate fantasies of dating the last Uchiha, not surpassing him in skill. Then again, Naruto has always been a bit strange. Interesting. 

“Yeah! If I surpass him then that means I’m strong too and I can protect myself from anyone!” she reasoned.

_Oh, Naruto. That’s kind of sweet of you to have such faith in his strength and want something similar for yourself,_ he thought. 

Naruto has always been unironically sweet, Iruka thinks and says, “Maybe you should tell him that,”

Naruto jumps out of her seat, ramen surprisingly forgotten, “You’re so right, Iruka-sensei! Someday I’m going to surpass that bastard and he’s going to be eating my dust. So he should know it!”

“Hm- yes- wait a minute,” but she’s already out the door, speeding down the hall. “That’s not what I meant. Naruto wait! Come back here! That’s not what I meant at all!”.

* * *

Naruto has come to realize that Sasuke’s anger and irritation are far better than no emotion at all, even when it’s directed at her. She doesn’t know if she’s making things better or worse but at least he doesn’t have that dead look in his eye.

She realizes this truth after challenging him for the first time. He swiftly knocks her on her arse and the humiliation burns, but his eyes burn hotter. It’s the strangest thing though because he looks at everyone with these eyes, not just her, and for once she doesn’t feel entirely alienated. 

And in truth, she does consider him her rival. She wants to surpass him, surpass the one who saved her. If she surpassed the one who saved her then she could save herself. The idea of ever having been rescued at all still rankles her, no matter how grateful she is.

The sun is setting and her hands are still stained with dried paint. Perhaps she should go home and shower. She smells like sweat, must, and paint, with the faintest hint of miso and oranges. But she doesn’t feel like going back to an empty apartment, with those cracked walls and cold floors. Instead, she makes her way to the Naka River, where she always goes when she doesn’t want to go home. She hasn’t been there in months, not since the last time. She used to walk there mindlessly, knowing the path like the back of her hand, but it is hard to walk this same path and not notice the empty Uchiha district. There is no avoiding it either, you have to walk past it to reach the Naka River. She tries to go another way, the streets between the large stadium where the chunin exams are sometimes held and Konoha’s hospital.

This path only takes her around to the other side of the district and she grumbles in disdain. There’s a clear path through the training grounds, so she goes there instead, shoving her hands in the pockets of her large green shorts. At this time of day, the golden time of day, the village is almost silent, and she hears the violent schism of the river, so loud is it, even from afar. She’ll wash her hands there until they grow numb and cold. Maybe even take a whole bath. _I should have brought my ivory soap_ , she thinks. It wouldn’t have changed anything, no matter how hard she scrubbed at her skin she wouldn’t become any lighter. She’ll still be the same dark-skinned demon girl that nobody likes. The hafu, the gaijin, the konketsuji. Half, foreigner, mix blooded child. 

She should probably stop using the stuff, and she will...someday. She angrily kicks a rock and watches as it rolls down the slope of a small hill. It skids to a stop at the mouth of a pier, overlooking a lake. And seated there is Sasuke Uchiha. She’d know that duck butt hair anywhere, right along with the uchiwa embroidered eloquently on the back of his navy blue shirt. How many times has she watched it walk away from her, slinking into the shadows to hide, to be alone? 

The lake reflects the light of the sun and Sasuke stares blankly at the depths. She wonders what he sees. Sometimes, she thinks about that day at the river and the bloody water that got in her mouth when she screamed. She wonders if that’s what he’s seeing, a large body of blood.

The boy tenses and looks up, meeting her pensive gaze. They stare at each other for what seems like a long while and she feels as if something unspoken is passing between them. Or maybe she’s just projecting because she’s lonely. 

How many nights did she think about taking his hand, when he reached out for her? How many nights did she regret her mistake of pushing it away?

Sasuke’s eyes never stray from her’s, and Naruto’s never stray from his. Her heart sounds off like a drum in her ears and that innate urge to speak climbs up her throat, the itch to move one foot in front of the other until she’s standing beside him. 

_I wanted to take your hand_ , she thinks, _I was just so angry, so ashamed. So weak._

_I wanted to take your hand._ Maybe you should tell him that, Iruka-sensei had said. 

But the moment passes and he turns away with a frown. Naruto pouts before doing the same and continues on her merry way. It’s getting dark and she still needs to wash off before the river gets too deep and cold.


	3. the outcast and the avenger; two lonely children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, however, he would know her anywhere, so distinct is she. 
> 
> Beneath the cool shade of the trees the slivers of sunlight slipping through make her skin glow with the wildness of golden prairie fields; a tawny brown, with warm earthy undertones.

She’s always been aware of how different she is, and her body has always been an anomaly. To the villagers, to her classmates, to herself. A strange little anomaly that becomes odder the more it grows.

Naruto remembers being five and wondering why her skin was so dark, wondering if that was the reason why everyone hated her, why her peers treated her like an outcast. At nine she remembers spending half of her stipend on a bar of ivory soap and scrubbing her skin red and raw, hoping that the dirt beneath her skin would come off to reveal pale flesh. 

She remembers cording her fingers through her thick and curly hair and wondering why it stuck out the way that it did, why it was so wild and tangly, so difficult. Why her hair couldn't be like Sakura’s or Ino’s or any of the other girls in her class.

She remembers picking at her whisker marks until her skin became irritated, desperately wishing she could peel them off, prodding at her sharp canines and flat nose and full lips, wishing she could make everything smaller and delicate. It was more than that though. There’s something in her, something starved, something hungry. For as long as she’s recalled she’s been a hungry child, has been hungry for so long that she’s forgotten what she’s had a taste for. 

She either speaks too much, climbing over everyone else's thoughts, or she doesn't speak enough, doesn't know how to piece the fabric of her thoughts together let alone say them out loud. She speaks without filter and offends without ever meaning to. And there’s so much going on in her mind, so much energy crawling beneath her skin that sitting still sometimes...it’s enough to make her want to combust. Because the world is so alive so why is she so _still_?

She barely holds onto one idea before swinging to another and there is nothing worse than being on the precipice of a thought before it escapes you, before you forget the very words at the tip of your tongue and it fades into obscurity. It’s why she says the first thing on her mind, before it flees and she never gets it back.

But it only further proves to everyone else that she’s just too much to deal with. Her skin and hair and marks and attitude, it’s all too much. Too much effort to put into a demon child.

So when she bleeds for the first time, waking up to red-stained sheets and the smell of iron, it’s just one more thing that’s wrong with her. 

She’s eleven when this happens and she’s scared. It’s past midnight and her stomach is cramping, twisting with unforgiving knots, and no matter how much she showers the blood won't stop. She starts crying, wishing there was someone she could turn to because she doesn't know what’s wrong with her. For all she knows she could be dying! And would anyone care?

_Iruka-sensei would_ , her mind supplied, and it takes all of five minutes to slip on her blue zori and her blood-stained pants before running out onto the dark streets.

She’d followed him home once, in an attempt to practice her stealth skills (and watch her favorite person from afar). She finds herself at his door at five o'clock in the morning, banging frantically at apartment number six, without regard for his sleeping neighbors. 

At first, Iruka-sensei is aghast, and then concerned once he sees her teary blue eyes, arms wrapped around her stomach, even more so when she shouts, “Iruka-sensei there’s something wrong with me!”

After assuaging her worries with “This is completely normal.” and “There’s nothing wrong with you Naruto, this is natural.” and “You're okay.”, he runs to the nearest convenience store and returns with some pads and gives her a long-sleeved shirt to tie around her waist to hide the stain. 

“You're going to be alright Naruto,” he says once again, smiling gently. He’s trying to be understanding, even if he’s a little flustered. 

He tells her that this isn't unusual for girls her age, that this will happen more often and she should be prepared when it does. Get a calendar to track the days, buy a moderate amount of pads, always bring some to the academy just in case, and drink hot soups and tea to help with the pain. He gives her little health pamphlets and a health book with certain pages to read on about menstrual cycles and the female anatomy, and it’s enough to make them both uncomfortable but he powers through, determined to make sure she’s well-informed. He even lends her his heating pad, before sending her on her way and she’s so glad that at the very least Iruka-sensei is there for her. Even if he doesn't want to be, he’s her teacher and he’s the only teacher she’s ever had that’s reached out to her, the only person who tolerates her.

When she gets home, instead of using the ivory soap on her skin she uses it on her orange pants, her only pair of pants, breaking her nails as she scrubs fervently at the red stain before doing the same to her sheets. Pours cold water, bleach and salt, and vinegar, anything to get rid of the blood. 

Despite everything she drags herself to class later that morning, because in her hysteria she promised Iruka-sensei that she’d be there and she never goes back on her word. Though the return to normalcy gives her whiplash. According to the health book, she’s matured, she’s growing, she’s becoming a young woman. She’s going to need things like bras and pads, and her body’s going to change, is going to slim out or fill out and grow hair in places she never thought it could grow and it scares her. Iruka-sensei is fine and she’s grateful for his help, but she wishes she had a sister to talk to about this, or better yet, a mother.

The girls in her class always talked about how fast girls mature than boys, and they always said this while batting their eyes at the ones they liked, as though the action could somehow speed up the process for their male counterparts. 

Though no one had ever said anything about this, about the bleeding and the aching and the changing, and she wants to ask them if they’re scared of it too. She doesn’t of course. She’s Naruto the boy, not Naruto the girl, and even if she was the girl, she knows that they wouldn't want to talk to her anyhow. 

Why would they, when they have sisters and mothers and friends to talk to instead?

* * *

When she’s twelve she finds out that Iruka-sensei is enough, even if he’s not what she’s always wanted. That he will always be there for her. That she can always count on him.

Iruka-sensei is enough, and as she unties his hitai-ate (her hitai-ate now) and places it on her nightstand before crawling into a cold bed, she cries. Though not out of sadness, not this time. 

_It’s alright to cry when you're happy._

* * *

She wipes her lips of Sasuke’s residual spit with a grimace and listens as Iruka-sensei lists teams. That was her first kiss and it’d been horrible. Not at all what she expected it would be like.

Truth be told she never thought about it much, never had someone she was interested in enough to fantasize about. Her fantasies consisted of returning to a real home with a real family, (with a mother and father and little siblings to look after, and home-cooked meals at a dinner table) and when those fantasies turned her mouth bitter she thought of things that were actually attainable. 

Being Hokage was more realistic than ever having a family, in her mind. 

On the off chance that she did think of kissing or liking somebody, she imagined, well...she can’t really say what she imagines besides not being alone.

The kiss had been all clashing teeth and bruised lips and sloppy spit, the faint taste of tomatoes on her tongue. _Gross._ Yet, despite how terrible it had been she can’t help but feel butterflies when Iruka-sensei lists the names for Team Seven. 

She wonders if this is her chance, a second chance to finally become friends with Sasuke. A chance to finally have a girl companion in Sakura to talk to about all the things she can’t with Iruka-sensei. Just the things that you can’t share with adults but can share with each other, knowing your secrets and your fears will be kept safely hidden. 

Even if they don’t like her now, even if they can’t stand the sight of her, she wonders if she can change their mind…

* * *

Her hopes are carelessly dashed within the three hours it takes for their sensei to appear. 

It stings when Sakura says it. 

This is honestly not even her worst prank, just a stupid eraser in a door and yet she feels dumb and guilty and small from the harshness of the other girl’s words.

She looks at Naruto with the same disdain everyone’s always looked at her with and says “He has no respect or discipline,” and then leans toward Sasuke to whisper in his ear, “You know, it’s because he’s an orphan. He had no parents to teach him right from wrong, so he’s rude and mean and selfish. Not to mention a hafu, and we all know how _they_ are. Kids without families always grow up selfish,”

Naruto can’t help but put her head down in shame. She waits for Sasuke to agree with Sakura, united in their dislike for her but he doesn't. 

Instead, he adds, “And alone, isolated. But what the hell would you know about it? You have parents,” the disdain in his voice is evident, and Sakura flinches, hell, even Naruto flinches. “You could never understand what it’s like to be that lonely. You...irritate me. Go away.” and then he turns away from her, folding his hands under his chin to gaze out the window. 

Sakura reaches out for him as if to change his mind, but her hand falls in defeat and she shrinks into her seat. 

None of this makes Naruto feel better. If anything, Sakura’s going to hate her more. She considers telling Sasuke off but before she can so much as open her mouth the door slides open instead, her trap sprung and their jonin-sensei pranked. The sight doesn't give her the satisfaction she’d hoped for, but it’s enough to make her crack a smile.

* * *

  
  


Although the loneliness is loud, the ghosts are even louder. 

The ghosts are in the dining room where his family once sat to take every meal, where his father would make inquires about the daily lives of his family in matters that did not pertain to the clan or work or the academy because he knew it made their mother happy. He’d not been a man of many words and grand gestures, but it was the little things, always the little things, that their family held onto.

The ghosts are in the gardens the women of the Uchiha clan used to tend, where they weeded and sowed and grew rows of flowers, fruit trees, and tomatoes because they knew he loved them so much. The children used to play and run about, and steal fruit before they were even ripe. That garden is now rotting, everything is dead.

The ghosts are in the Senbei his uncle and aunt worked, and their parents before them, a little family-owned shop that’d been around since the founding of Konoha. Cousins would linger outside the shop after a long shift at the station before Aunt Uruchi would fondly shoo them away with her broom.

Uncle Teyaki would sometimes tease the secret recipe that he held so close, the one that’d been passed down from generation to generation. Once Sasuke tried to replicate it by remembering the taste, long after Teyaki was dead, but he can never get it right and the flavor has long since faded from his memory. 

The ghosts are in the shrine where his mother used to take him to worship their gods or pay homage to their ancestors. She’d taught him how to pour the oil and light the incense and say the prayers. Sasuke hasn't stepped foot in there since the last time he went, a week before her death, and he doesn't know if it’s from shame or resentment. Perhaps both. 

The gods had allowed this to happen, and there had been no forewarning from the ancestors. 

They had let it happen, just as Sasuke let it happen. 

He realizes that Itachi took more than just his parents that night and the sheer emptiness of a place that was once so alive leaves him staring blankly at a wall. The urge to scream bloody murder climbing up his throat but he always swallows it down, intent on not disturbing the incessant silence, disturbing the ghosts lest they fade from his memory like the taste of his uncles senbei.

* * *

_How had they not seen the signs?_ he wonders. How hadn't he?

He remembers the first nights _After_ and remembers not sleeping at all. Remembers staring at the chalky outlines of his parents' bodies. Those outlines were everywhere. In the streets and in the houses, in various positions and angles. A glaring reminder of why everyone was gone, why he was the only one left. 

There wasn't even a proper funeral, he thinks. All the graves are empty.

He remembers eventually having to go to every house to clean the refrigerators of rotting food (it was beginning to stink up the district), stepping over the wood floorboards stained with blood, and feeling particularly hollow whenever he walked past a baby crib or a room filled with toys and children drawings. 

_What kind of man, what kind of person?_

The man he’d adored, the man he’d loved, the man he would have followed anywhere because he was his big brother. And there can never be any greater betrayal than that.

* * *

Sometimes he wishes he could make time bow, what with the way it moves so slow. 

Birthdays are just any other day to him, that and markers for how far he’s come in skill and how far he still needs to go. And Itachi always remains a figure of measurement. It fills Sasuke with no small amount of rage that he’s competing with a shadow.

The years pass and he finds himself scrounging for dusty shirts in abandoned homes as he outgrows his old ones. It’s daunting to wear Shisui’s clothes, folded neatly in drawers that haven’t been opened since his death, but it’s either that or Itachi’s. Bad enough that he already shares blood with the man, he doesn't need to share clothes too. 

There’s a part of him that wants to look deeper. To rummage through his mother’s drawers and find letters and diaries, to dig through his father’s office and look at the little notes his father left for himself and arranged in words he could only decipher the meaning, to lurk in his big cousin’s closet and find remnants of old mission scrolls never completed and notebooks filled with plans never spoken of.

He doesn't. 

Instead, he trains and trains until he collapses, because the past is dead but he is not, and in the future, Itachi will be.

Graduation steadily approaches and he’s another step closer to his goal. Still, Sasuke wishes that he could make time bow, what with the way that it moves so slowly.

* * *

He wonders what Naruto’s aim is exactly, by making a rival out of Sasuke. What the hell does he get out of this?

But it doesn't take long for Sasuke to realize that there is no aim, that the arguing and bold declarations of becoming Hokage is just a part of who the boy is. The innate need to announce his existence, remind everyone that he is there, especially Sasuke for whatever reason. It’s endearing almost. Almost.

* * *

He discovers Naruto’s gender in the most uncomfortable way. 

He’d suspected, truth be told, or at least that’s what he tells himself whenever he thinks about how Naruto pulled one over the entire village, with Kakashi and the Hokage in cahoots.

It was the little things, like the fact that the other boy loved gardening (and loved tending to sunflowers) and cooking (most boys didn't love cooking like he and Naruto did, for some odd reason) and citrus-scented shampoo. Don’t ask Sasuke why he knows the other boy uses citrus smelling shampoo (the smell is hard to miss when Naruto’s constantly in his bubble of space, and it is aphrodisiac in nature, infuriatingly so) but he does. It’s honestly a given, considering during their introductions as Team Seven, he’d gone on about how oranges were only second to ramen.

And Sasuke’s no sensor like that Inuzuka mutt, but Naruto never really smelled like a boy, not completely. There were hints of steel, pine, sweat, and miso, inherently masculine smells but it was countered with the smell of citrus and flowers (what he imagines summer smells like or maybe even sunlight, sweet-smelling welding fumes). And for all that the boy was always roughhousing with the other boys, always picking fights and getting injured, there was nigh a scar on his body (which is strange on its own). That golden-brown skin was too soft (if lean with muscle), too unblemished even with the whisker marks. The ragged personality clashed with his feminine countenance. To graceful for an idiot that it had to have been biological. Sly like a fox, dodging his strikes and kicks, more flexible than a boy has any right to be. And dainty, with small feet and tiny slender hands landing harsh blows (like a damn Akimichi) with unmarred knuckles, not a single callous on those palms. No boy, not the boy Naruto was trying to portray, should have such a long and slender neck and soft jawline without that masculine sharp edge. 

No matter how much Naruto teased him it was clear to anyone with eyes who the real pretty boy was. Sasuke had thought the idiot was projecting.

Sasuke’s lips tingle, unbidden, in remembrance of the kiss. How everyone seemed to slow down but the earth's rotation only picked up in speed, flipping his stomach about, his heart pounding off like a hammer against a cloth. Plump lips as soft as flower petals, tasting of salty miso and sweet mandarin oranges landing on his. The question ' _why why why would you do that?'_ reverberating in his head, a war-drum of a thought.

After the kiss, after the formation of Team Seven, he’d been confused and angry and made it his job to glare at the idiot whenever he could. Nothing but a bright distraction, and his thoughts and emotions felt so disrupted that for a while That Man was the furthest thing from his mind. 

Why the hell was he so caught up on what the idiot smelled and tasted like? Hands twitching at the thought of unmarked skin. Sasuke wanted to bruise it, squeeze those slender wrists until he left them red. 

He teases the boy, eager to get a rise out of him if only to prove that these new feelings are invalid and hold no weight, all the while feeling as though he’s doing the exact opposite. It goes against his very nature, both as an Uchiha (or so he thinks) and as an avenger. 

He finds out during their first C-rank mission, not long after their encounter with Zabuza. The blonde boy is obviously wounded, and with Kakashi unconscious and Sakura focused on him, he’s the only one who notices the slight wincing and grimaces. And of course, the careless blonde is going to ignore it, and pretend everything is fine. That’s how he’s always handled his wounds both physical and emotional. Sasuke’s been watching him long enough to see that.

When Sakura goes downstairs to help Tsunami in the kitchen Sasuke drags Naruto to the bathroom by the scruff of his jacket and all but throws him on the bathroom floor. Then he searches the cabinet for medical supplies and gets to work. 

“I’m fine. I heal fast,” the idiot tries to argue, which Sasuke promptly ignores. Because the idiot could barely fend him off, could barely pick himself off the floor. Zabuza must have hit him real good. 

Naruto had barely dodged the missing nins sword when the man first appeared and the thing was so sharp, Sasuke knew it nicked more than just the outer layer of the jacket.

“Why do you even care anyway?” The question was enough to give him pause, enough to ignore the other boy’s nervous tenor.

“I don’t,” Sasuke responded, ignoring the dainty struggling hands hitting his chest without any real strength, trying to push him away to no avail. “But you’ll only get in the way of our mission if your wounds are ignored, idiot.”

And it was the least he could do. Naruto had proven his worth during the heat of battle, staying true to the oath he made hours prior. Such quick thinking and perhaps even cunning that he hadn't thought the other boy was capable of possessing. That quick thinking and cunning had deceived a high ranking missing-nin and saved their lives in the long run. 

He unzipped that horrendous orange jacket only to pause once again at the sight of blood-stained bandages wrapped around a tightly bound chest. The boy whimpered helplessly as Sasuke took out a kunai, and with the pointy end, cut through the thick layers of gauze. 

Not a second later Sasuke nearly has a heart attack, forgets how to breathe for a moment.

The awkwardness is palpable and the silence overbearing.

They aren’t even particularly large breasts, but they’re there, blatantly present and-

The idiot hastily covers her chest, a flush on her face.

“S-stop staring bastard,” because Sasuke had been staring. 

At the taut stomach and further up at the breasts that should belong to a girl not a boy, and then that pretty heart-shaped face (that managed to fool everyone, even him). Then back down at the breasts again, much to his shame and her embarrassment. 

The cogwheels start to turn in his head and everything clicks together.

Naruto’s a girl. The entire time and he never even noticed. So much for looking underneath the underneath. 

Sasuke conspicuously shrugs before taking out a fresh roll of gauze and alcohol to place on the wound on her side, appearing to be nonchalant and uncaring at this sudden revelation, even though internally he’s reeling and his brain has hopped onto autopilot as he processes the situation. 

Still, there’s no need to be weird about it and he’s seen worse things. 

He tries to ignore how she twitches and shivers at every brush of his fingers against her bare skin, the flush that spreads down her slender neck to her collarbones to the slope of her breasts. 

The entire process is too damn intimate for his liking and a part of him regrets showing concern in the first place.

(it reminds him of what home used to be like when his mother tended to his scrapes and burns)

(silently she marvels at how surprisingly gentle he is, and how nice it feels to be cared for)

And then, unbeknownst to each other, they’re bombarded by a memory that had started to grow faint but reappears with much vigor. 

The girl in the forest, with long blonde hair and fierce blue eyes fending off a group of boys bigger than even Sasuke. His daring rescue which had been soured toward the end because apparently, the girl hadn’t wanted _his_ help. 

He starts to wrap the gauze around her wound a little too tightly.

“Hey!” she yelped. “Be careful you bast-”

“Not that I care, but why are you pretending to be a boy?” he quickly cut her off. 

She visibly gulped and looked away, squirming beneath his piercing gaze.

_Do I even really want to know?_

He could draw his own logical conclusions as to why an orphan girl might disguise herself as a boy and none of them are good, most of them make his stomach churn with disgust. He may be a 'bastard' but he's not a heartless one nor is he _sick_.

“Tch, whatever. Do you need stitches or not?”

“I already told you I heal fast.”

“And I already told you that I don’t believe you. Nobody heals that fast-”

She promptly takes his kunai and runs her palm along the edge until beads of blood trickle down her wrist. Just as he’s about to snatch the steel away and call her an idiot, he pauses for the third time that day, this time in begrudging awe at the sight of flesh knitting itself back together without much effort. 

Sasuke only lets out a noncommittal grunt in response, inwardly bewildered by the day’s turn of events, before passing her the rest of the gauze to bind her chest back up. He quickly turns the other way.

“Thank you, Sasuke,” he startles at that. 

Even more so when he sees the soft look on her face, which only serves to enhance her strange prettiness, the gentle smile that tugs at her full lips, the flush on her cherubic cheeks, and faint fluttering of her blonde eyelashes against dusky skin, dusting the hollow beneath her eyes. The fact that she said his name at all without the usual venom was astounding.

He’s so out of it that he doesn’t even notice when she grips his wrist with her pleasantly warm (and soft) hand. He represses a shiver. 

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone?” she pleads, with those bright doe eyes.

Sasuke grits his teeth. “I honestly don’t care enough to share your little secret. It’s none of my business. Just try not to get injured, _again_ , usuratonkachi.” And then that was that. 

He speeds the hell out of there, lighting fast, eager to get away from her and the feelings she evoked. 

(Later, those feelings resurfaced full force. Sasuke had been willing to trade his life-and his dreams, his purpose- for hers, and for a single moment, he’d known true strength. 

Just as he did all those years ago. He’s starting to think he’s destined to save her skin). 

* * *

  
  


She’s tired but she is more determined than she is tired. And in a way, the feeling is good. It feels good to burn through all this energy nestled in her gut, even when it leaves her in cool layers of sweat. 

She’s making progress with this tree-walking thing, she knows she is, and she’ll swear up and down that her kunai markings are a few inches higher than her last, and a few inches higher than Sasuke’s, hah!

Sasuke, who took care of her when she was hurt, had paid enough attention to even notice that she was in pain, to begin with. He didn’t have to do that and yet...maybe he wasn’t as cold and cruel as she thought he was.

Naruto plops down on her butt and sighs.

There’s a lull in the static sound of grunting and steel hacking against wood as the sun sinks and the violet sky blooms with peach-colored clouds. 

Sasuke looks at her, looks away, then looks at her again with a blush on his cheeks. 

Already she knows this is going to be good. 

“What did Sakura tell you?” he looks away once more with a mulish pout and Naruto can’t stop the grin that spreads from cheek to cheek on her face. 

“Wouldn't you like to know, Mr. Number One Rookie of the Year!” she giggles at his apparent outrage. “Haha! The stupid look on your face-” she stops herself when he starts walking away, grumbling insults beneath his breath. 

For some reason, the sight of him walking away vexes her. “Wait, no! I’m just kidding I’ll tell you! Since you…” he halts in his steps as she recalls careful hands bandaging the wound on her side that’s long since healed. 

Recalls him defending her, when he didn't have to, when by all rights he should have agreed with Sakura because Naruto’s only ever been mean to him. Recalls a little boy chasing the bullies away.

“Since you helped me earlier, ‘ttebayo. Geez, you're so easy to tease.” she adds on. Can’t have him thinking she’s gone soft. 

He scoffs and turns to face her. “Just tell me already, usuratonkachi.” 

“Okay, okay. Um, she said something about concentrating chakra to your feet, but like, with a thin layer or something. Kinda like glue.” she explains or at least tries to. No one’s ever really asked her for help like this before. Well, except Konohamaru but he was a little baby compared to someone like Sasuke. Sasuke always knows how to do everything.

“That’s it?” he asks.

“That’s it,” she confirms, giving him a thumbs up. 

There’s another bout of silence as he stares at her. It makes her nervous and overly self-aware. 

She smiles broadly anyhow.

And then he says “Thank you,” and it throws her. 

She’s surprised that he’d care enough to thank her and quickly she tries to recover. Her smile is genuine this time, softer. 

“No problem.” She scratches the back of her head sheepishly and adds, “You know you could just ask Sakura instead. She even helped me, and sometimes she doesn't even like being around me.” 

That was an understatement. 

She doesn't know what she did to Sakura or if she did anything at all. It wasn't strange, being unliked, and there were so many reasons not to like Naruto, in her mind. Her hair was wild and untamed, her skin darker than most, her cheeks marked with whiskers of all the things, and she liked orange, something the other girl noted with distaste. But she thinks what Sakura dislikes about her most is how clingy she can get, always asking to hang out or go for ramen or be friends. Granted the other girl thinks she’s a boy but does it really matter? Sasuke’s a boy and Sakura always wants to be around him. 

“She’d drop everything to help you,” she continues and fists the fabric of her pants tightly. 

(She thinks everyone would drop everything for him if he’d only ask and sometimes the thought makes her burn with envy.)

“No,” he quickly dismisses with all the harshness he’s known for.

She folds her arms and pouts. “Why not?”

He raises an eyebrow and scoffs. “You know why.”

Oh, she knows why. Everybody knows why. But she just doesn't get it. 

It’s Sakura. Sakura who’s pretty and smart and strong if her punches are anything to go by. And- and she smells like _flowers_. She's not overly pale but her skin is a nice peach. Her hair is pink and soft, long, and silky. Lot’s of boys liked Sakura. 

“She really likes you, dattebayo. She’s not that bad,” she presses on, imploring. “And she really _really_ likes you.” 

“Don’t care.” he blushes again, shoving his hands in his pocket.

And then it comes to her, that maybe Sasuke is just shy about his feelings. What did they call those? _Tsundere._

She gives him a knowing grin and skips over to him, ready to tease. “Oh, I see-”

“Would you please stop being a brat, Naruto.”

“You put on the tough guy act but you're a big softie beneath. I see that blush!” she points directly at the pink that tints his cheeks.

“You're seeing things,” the cool exterior cracks and he’s gritting his teeth, frown deepening. 

But she’s not seeing things because he’s still blushing. Even Sasuke couldn't control something as unpredictable as that.

Upon closer inspection, she sees the pink at the tips of his ears and while leaning in closer, whispers, “I know what you look like when you're embarrassed.”

A flushed face could mean almost anything but she knows she has him when those ears turn pink. Those ears had turned a deep rose gold when they accidentally kissed, and an even deeper red when he’d found out about her little _secret._

“Oh yeah? How do I look?” he challenges testily, but she knows he really wants to know or else he would have simply shrugged off her taunts like he usually does.

“Not telling you.” she gives him one of her foxy grins and sticks out her tongue.

“You really are a brat.” He turns away but she still sees his pink ears.

* * *

Sasuke looked down at the blonde-haired child sprawled out on the ground, sound asleep, exposed to the elements and enemy alike. Just so she could train more in hopes of surpassing him. What an idiot. 

He takes a moment to observe her, really observe her; reassess his preconceived notions while she’s still unconscious, and unable to call him out on it. 

She’s _still_ a strange person, all around. A girl who pretends to be a boy and favors the color orange as if her irritatingly bright hair wasn't enough. 

Hair that curls against her scalp, kissing her forehead in spiraling coils; looking soft to the touch, contrasting against her skin. He notes that her skin is darker than most and mentally kicks himself when he thinks of how he'd never recognized her again years after their first encounter. _It wasn't that,_ he thought, _it was just that I hadn't cared too._ That detail had simply faded into obscurity, along with their little rendezvous in the forest, after Itachi-after _everything_ that happened it hadn't mattered to him anymore. 

Now, however, he would know her anywhere, so distinct is she. 

Beneath the cool shade of the trees the slivers of sunlight slipping through make her skin glow with the wildness of golden prairie fields; a tawny brown, with warm earthy undertones. 

She has these peculiar whisker marks on her cheeks that remind him of the cats prowling the abandoned grounds of Sora-ku. Or better yet the prominent whiskers of a Fire Country fox, especially when she grinned. It gave the impression that she was someone with more than a bit of wildness in her, feral and untamed.

Though like this, in sleep, in warm patches of white sunshine, she's a peaceful sentient. The primitive part of his brain supplies how attractive she is when one looks past the shallow surface of what's supposed to be deemed attractive. 

Sasuke isn’t blind. He knows Sakura is conventionally pretty, (lots of the girls who like him are pretty) and many of his male peers would agree, but Naruto...she's a diamond in the rough if there ever was one. 

A dedicated and determined and ambitious diamond. She's more interested in surpassing him in skill than dating him, because she has a dream, one that she zealously believes in and he respects that. 

Sasuke rarely respects anything about anyone. 

She’s loud and obnoxious and hot-headed, she doesn't care for rules, proprietary or authority but neither does he most of the time, not if it doesn't benefit him. She wears her feelings on her sleeve and speaks without filter and yet he knows that deep down she's a sad little girl. A lonely little girl whose recklessness is an unheeded cry for help.

Joking and laughing makes life easier for her, though life is still hard.

Despite all of this, Sasuke can admit to himself, and only himself, that he doesn't mind being around her. That secretly, this is something that he's always coveted back in their Academy days. Nothing as simple as companionship, anyone could have given him that had he simply reached out, but an unspoken understanding between two lonely children. 

It's why they've always orbited around each other, he realizes and the thought makes him feel-

The girl mumbles something unintelligible before stirring, signaling her slow ascent to consciousness. She idly scratches her nose and licks her chapped lips and tosses around some more. He wonders when she'll realize that her attempts at sleep are a futile endeavor and her body has become restless with wakefulness. 

Even this draws him in, makes him linger. He tells himself it's because she's been out here all day and night and if nobody comes to drag her back to the house then she will simply not return. She'll go without meals for hours on end if it means she can train endlessly, and while the notion is relatable, it's unsettling to see someone else (besides himself) behave so carelessly. 

Naruto is going to be hungry when she wakes up, without a doubt, and he's going to make sure she eats. She’s his teammate after all. 

He’s come to accept that she's a distraction, an annoying distraction, but one that he begrudgingly enjoys. 

“Eh? What the hell are you looking at, bastard?”

Sometimes.

* * *

Reaching the top of the tree is an almost liberating moment. To have finally mastered something and in such a short time. 

It was a small step but a step closer to his goal nonetheless. He knows it’s the same for her as well, with the way she smiles at the moon as it smiles back at her. A breathless laugh on her lips, the relieved and happy kind of laugh. He stares and stares and feels something stir in his chest. 

That kindred between kith and kin. 

(He’d seen it once, with Shisui and…)

Two lonely children with dreams. And he dares hope that maybe he can allow himself this one companion, just this once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if I made any grammatical mistakes/errors so I can fix it! Hope you enjoy.


	4. you misinterpret everything; even the silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so they fought, and so they laughed. And before they knew it they were inseparable.

She cares about Sasuke. Really cares about Sasuke. 

The realization dawns on her a little too late, with his dying body in her arms whispering dying words with a dying smile. 

She's never hated him. He's not that arrogant or rude and she admits sometimes their confrontations were entirely her fault, with how she'd constantly antagonized him. It's just that, she's always wanted to be like him. Brave and heroic and _brave._ Brave enough and strong enough to save herself. But here he is, saving her again. For the last time. 

_You stupid bastard, why would you risk your life for me?_ she screams. _I didn't ask you to save me. I can save myself. Damn you. Damn you!_

_My body moved on its own,_ is his only rebuttal. 

And it's not fair that someone like him, as good and brave as he should die for someone like _her_. 

She puts on a brave front but sometimes she’s just as scared as Sakura. 

He’s willing to die for her, willing to take that killing blow, and she knows what that means, experienced it before with Iruka-sensei. The instinctual need to protect something you feel is precious to you, at the cost of yourself, because a world without that precious someone...it’s simply not a world worth living in. 

She cares about Sasuke and he cares about her too. He’s willing to die for her. _He cares about her._ And now he’s gone.

Rage consumes her.

* * *

Words cannot describe the relief she feels when she sees him, alive and whole if a little worn but that’s to be expected. The main thing is that Sasuke’s alive, they all are. The stakes had been high and they’d had much to lose, but they came out okay.

Some were not as fortunate as they were. She looks at Haku and Zabuza lying side by side, together in death just as they had been in life and she allows herself to feel remorse and a bit of regret for letting rage consume her.

* * *

Team Seven surrounded a campfire, near a cliff overlooking the backlit of the dense forests native to the Land of Fire. Their mission had been long and tiring, the events that occurred in Wave still weighing heavily on their minds and hearts. Many hard lessons were learned and personal truths found. But all is well. 

They've stopped along a path to rest their feet. They have a week's worth of travel left and while Kakashi could probably make it there on his own in less, he has a team of worn, weary and wary genin on his hand who've just experienced their first real mission.

They sit in tense silence, in deep contemplation. 

Sakura keeps trying to break the silence with idle chatter and Kakashi gives her a crescent eyed smile for her efforts, even if they’re all in vain. Naruto and Sasuke aren't really helping. 

Before the mission the two had gotten along like water and oil but then...something shifted, their experiences bearing something monumental to the team dynamics. They’d trained together, they'd worked together, knowing their lives depended on it and if his suspicions are to be believed they nearly died for each other too. The thought makes Kakashi's heart stir with guilt and old failures long past. And a bit of hope. That this Team Seven has dodged the curse that's hounded them for generations. 

(He’s wrong of course.)

This Team Seven...Kakashi knows his luck and tries not to hope too much, he really does, but this Team Seven feels different. On the surface, to a blind eye, it's the typical dynamic of dead last, prodigy, and fangirl, a carbon copy of the- of _his_ old Team Seven. 

But Naruto is not Obito, Sasuke is not Kakashi and Sakura is not Rin. Rin hadn't been nearly as spirited as Sakura. Naruto is so unlike Obito it isn't even funny. She doesn’t help kindly old strangers, even if she wanted to, the rejection and fear she’d be faced with keeps her away. And Sasuke, if anything, is the inverse of what Kakashi had been as a young boy. He doesn't disregard the rules but he doesn't care for them either, and he knows what it means to put your comrades first, Kakashi had to learn the hard way.

(Young Kakashi would have never abandoned his village either, older Kakashi...Older Kakashi wouldn't know what to live for if he did.)

Something _changed_ and he's going to allow himself to feel hope, for this moment, this single moment of respite beneath the pale moonlight, with his team alive and whole and not _dead_. 

Kakashi Hatake allows himself to feel hope.

Naruto starts cooking, actually cooking, with the food supply Tsunami had given them for their trip. 

She starts moving with the ease and diligence of someone who's touched a stove more than two times without burning the kitchen down (something that triggered his memory of late evenings at the Uzumaki-Namikaze residence and a fiery redhead serving a home-cooked meal. _You will have a proper diet, dattebane!_ ). 

Even more surprising, the food is _decent_. It’s leagues better than the ration bars and food pills they've been dryly swallowing since they left the Wave, and far better than his own cooking. 

Of course, at the revelation of Naruto's culinary skills, hilarity ensues. 

"Wow, this is edible. It actually tastes kinda good. Naruto I didn't think you'd know how to cook a decent meal!" Sakura exclaims, surprise riddled on her peachy face. She'd been the main protester to Naruto's cooking. But the results looked so tempting…

"Hell yeah, I do!" Naruto practically bounced at the sound of approval and praise. "Iruka-sensei taught me."

That made sense, the young teacher has always had a soft spot for the village pariah. 

Sakura’s vexed. "But all you ever eat is ramen!"

At that Naruto's face falls. It's only for a second but there's little his eye doesn't see.

"Well...ramen is really good. And sometimes...I can't afford anything else." The admission leaves them all silent. 

Kakashi's eye falls back to the erotic literature in his hand, not really seeing the words but needing something to focus on other than Minato's sad blue eyes looking out from Kushina's crestfallen face. The combination is uncanny, a stark reminder of who he lost. 

Sometimes it's so hard looking at her. He tells himself that there's so much he could have done for his sensei's daughter, even if he knows better. 

"I have to budget for more important things like electricity and water and heat, and all that other stuff the Old Man says is really important. It'll be bad for me if I don't. I learned my lesson the first time." She shivers at the memory of hunger, he imagines. Or perhaps a cold apartment in the middle of winter because the gas cut off.

There’s a moment of intermission before, 

"...YOU KNOW HOW TO BUDGET!?" Ah, sweet Sakura. 

Naruto, for once, is reasonably offended. He sees these two becoming as close as sisters, once Sakura figures out the other girl's actual gender, but they have a ways to go until then. Or maybe not. Siblings tease each other, don’t they? and there’s a glint in the pinkette’s eyes, one filled with curiosity. She wants to understand why Naruto is the way that she is, why she does the things that she does, and it’s finally coming together.

"Why the hell are you so surprised, Sakura?! I know how to do a lot of things, dattebayo! I have been taking care of myself since I was five, after all!" 

Sasuke and Kakashi understand well. Being an orphan forces you to learn how to do everything on your own, and Naruto has been alone from the very beginning of her childhood. He doubts she eats out often (despite her endless appetite for the restaurant made ramen), with the little stipend she gets for utilities, and groceries last longer even if the groceries in question are the cheap second-handed bottom of the barrel kind.

"Oh yeah, that's right." Sakura rubs her chin, that inquisitive mind of hers churning out questions. "So if you have to focus on food and rent...is that why you always wear the same cheap jumpsuit?! Because you can't afford clothes!?"

Naruto blushes but nods with a shrug. "Yep, but it's all good. Whenever it gets a tear I just sew it up with some good old needle and thread, dattebayo! And before you say anything, yes, I know how to sew!"

After listening quietly, Sasuke finally adds his own _input_. Almost hesitantly, dare he say shyly. 

He’s never pegged Sasuke for the bashful type, granted the two haven't shared an actual conversation since embarking on their journey home and things between Naruto and Sasuke have changed. The subtle sidelong glances accompanied with shy smiles unnoticed by the other unknowing recipient are evidence of that change. The dynamics have shifted indeed. 

_(but it hadn't been enough.)_

There’s a small, teasing smirk on his face, one that makes him look his age, look the boy he really is, and not the boy his brother forced him to become. 

The smirk tells it all and Kakashi braces himself for the bickering about to ensue. 

"Che, sewing huh? Gardening, cooking, sewing...You're more fit to be a wife than a ninja, usuratonkachi." The Uchiha lets out something between a scoff and a snicker as the Uzumaki's mouth falls open in outrage. 

Sakura chokes on her food, incredulous both at the joke itself and the fact that _Sasuke_ made a _joke_. 

"And your face is more fit to be mush beneath my shoe!" Naruto, ever the spitfire, shoots back. 

However, her face is red and she’s twitching nervously, eyes flickering to Sakura and Kakashi to see if either of them is catching on to the subtle dig at her hidden gender. 

"Hn, Housewife."

"Bastard!"

They bicker well into the night and Kakashi’s overcome with nostalgia, the same nostalgia that taunts him with every interaction between them. It’s not entirely reminiscent of young Kakashi and Obito (though it’s a reminder of what could have been). Sasuke’s more cautious and careful with her, perhaps how his mother and aunts and cousins (when they were still alive) taught him to behave toward someone he likes. There’s no boyish rivalry, not anymore, though he knows Naruto will try to keep it that way once she notices the difference. No, this reminds him of the playful banter between Minato and Kushina. 

Kakashi smiles a gentle smile beneath his mask. Yes, he would allow himself to hope. 

_(He allowed himself to hope and it predictably blew up in his face.)_

* * *

She doesn't know if this is supposed to be better but it definitely feels worse.

At the very least, he hadn't completely reverted back to his bastard ways but he was still a bastard, and now to top it all off he knew her secret. Making little sly remarks that make Kakashi lift an eyebrow in amusement, Sakura confused and Naruto blush in embarrassment.

He was just so infuriating! She never knew what to feel for him because his moods were forever changing like strange weather. One moment he made her feel warm and happy, joking with her, teasing her but without the usual bite, smiling ever so slightly at her antics. And then in the next, he was cold, silent, as though he’d forgotten who he was in those blissful moments and decided that he’d had enough, crawling back into his shell.

She’s taken to calling him a turtle now, much to his chagrin. It’s rather fitting to, with that high collared shirt he’s always hiding half his face under when he doesn't want to talk to anyone. And if you turn the uchiwa on his back upside down it looks like a turtle's head and shell, all she'd have to do is draw on the legs and arms. 

_Tch, good luck trying, idiot._ He’d mock, but there was this look in his eye, twinkling and mirthful. 

She’s never felt this close to anyone, not even Iruka-sensei or the Third Hokage. Sometimes he made her feel...precious. Something worth saving, reminiscent of the sweet little boy who saved her from the bullies, only this time it was a life and death situation and he’d been willing to give his up for hers and- she doesn't really know how to label this emotion. 

It’s foreign, it’s new. It makes her feel giddy albeit a little scared too. But if he’s going to be such a bastard she’d rather not feel it at all. Just when they were starting to feel like a real team he had to go and ruin everything!

Or at least it seems that way for her. Sakura is more than happy with Sasuke’s more talkative behavior no matter how much it waxes and wanes. Kakashi-sensei is Kakashi-sensei if a little more protective, proud, and begrudgingly endeared to his genin team. 

And she’d be fine with all this if the dynamics hadn't subtly changed. Because suddenly she’s not the same dead last boy trying to one-up the other boy while pining after the fangirl who’s pining after the prodigy. Sasuke knows she’s not who she’s portraying to be and she has this god-awful, dreadful feeling that he’s slowly starting to withdraw from their rivalry. Granted she initiated it and he’d barely entertained it but it had been there. 

What really sets her off is their sparing practice. Before the mission to Wave, he’d been brutal and merciless, more than willing to leave her body bruised and bloodied if only to put her in her place. When he thought she’d been a boy worth putting his effort into. 

But now? Now? 

He spars with her the way leaf shinobi often spar with their fellow kunoichi. There’s an unspoken code about not hitting their own women and how best to avoid it during spars. After all, rarely if ever are kunoichi the frontliners, the powerhouses. They're usually the backups, waiting on the sidelines to heal and nurture instead of protecting. It’s a very rare case for the kunoichi to do the fighting, especially if she’s not from a clan, and men don’t see women like that as a woman. More like some strange breed of creature, eccentric in nature, the exception instead of the rule and therefore not entirely encouraged.

Because naturally, men are stronger than women even when she is at her best. And she'll crumble beneath the brunt of his strength. What assholes. Whoever came up with that was probably the same asshole who decided that a three-man cell must consist of two boys and one girl and that anything else was abnormal. To encourage rivalry (so the boys can fight over the girl like meat and preen their feathers at her to get her attention), as if girls aren't capable of having their own ambitions and drive. And it's no wonder it's rare for women to take on a career as a ninja. No wonder half the girls don't make it past the Academy (unless, once again, they are a part of a clan) if this is the system that is set up and that the shinobi world is keen on sticking to. 

Sakura and Naruto are rare cases and that’s because almost the entire population of Konoha believes the latter is a boy. 

He dodges her blows, outmaneuvering her kicks, and subdues her with his strength. 

Overpowering her without ever balling up his fist. It's so annoying. Because this is the way he spars with Sakura, and Naruto likes the girl, she really does but she is nothing like Sakura. 

Naruto's been fighting with boys her whole life. She’s not some dainty little thing to be coddled. 

During their battle with Haku, she’d saved him just as much as he’d saved her. They were equals in her eyes but not in his. Any chance of that was blown away the moment he saw her boobs. 

That bastard!

When practice is over and both Sakura and Kakashi leave, she approaches him with righteous indignation before he can so much as reach the bridge.

"Fight me! Fight me how you used to fight me before you found out the truth!" She shouts at his retreating back. "Hit me! You coward!" 

He all but ignores her until she flies at him and makes him pay attention to her.

Because she hasn't been building up her strength, bloodying her knuckles on the backs of wooden posts, and setting him up as her rival (so that he may acknowledge her, truly acknowledge her) only for him to not take her half as seriously as he once did. When he thought she was a boy that had the potential to surpass him. 

She wants to remind him that she still has the potential to surpass him. Boy or girl. 

"You will acknowledge me, you bastard. You don't get to turn your back on this rivalry just because I'm a girl. I can still kick your ass, dattebayo! So don't you dare hold back on me, you prick!"

"I don't fight with little girls," he grunts out, a haughty little smirk forming on his lips. "You weren't all that much as a boy, and now you aren't even half of that as a _little girl_. I'm not gonna waste my time." 

He subdues her with ease, intercepting her haphazardly made strikes before gripping her fist and wrist. 

But then, she drops all protocol and headbutts him in that uncivilized uncouth way that's unbecoming of a ninja, more fitting for a drunken brawl in a seedy bar. 

She knows this because she's seen it firsthand and that's where most of her fighting etiquette comes from (sadly enough), both from observation and experience. 

He stumbles back in surprise, holding a bloody nose and busted lip. She takes advantage of his surprise and punches him in the jaw, reveling in the sound it makes as he tumbles to the ground. 

She's on him like white on rice. But she's not really hitting. More like strangling with her to small hands that can't seem to keep a grip on his neck. He digs his nails into the skin on her wrists but her hold is steadfast, strengthened by her unbridled rage. Her thighs are locked tightly around his hips. There is no escaping her wrath.

"Not so high and mighty now are you?" Her voice comes out violent and raspy. 

For a short-lived second she pondered on that, on how it didn't really sound like her voice, but just as quickly forgot it. The sight of seeing the Uchiha struggle beneath her is all too good, his aristocratic face flushed red with anger and something in her gut is eager to egg it on.

"You're such an arrogant bastard! God, I hate you sometimes! It's not fair. You treat everyone like shit, like an inconvenience and they still kiss the ground you walk on. Everyone loves you, the whole damn village loves you and you still push them away. And they push me away when all I ever wanted was..." their approval, their attention, their love. 

"That's not true," he chokes out between ragged breaths and bloodied teeth. "Idiot, I thought even you'd know it's possible to be lonely in a crowd." 

That renders her speechless. Because it's true, he's always seen but never heard and sometimes not even that. It is as though he's already dead to the world. The truth often cuts deep.

(She remembers a little boy, sitting alone at the pier or walking back to a home covered in caution tape and for a second feels a spark of shame. But only a second.)

There's a fire in his eyes and the one in her is dampening from the admission she just confessed. It hurts. Being rejected hurts. And he was the only one who'd cared to acknowledge her, even if it was just for a rivalry, and now it's gone.

He senses her weakness, and with the swift agility of a cat, he reverses their roles. With her pinned down beneath him. He slams her wrists down, bound together with one hand. Then slams it down again for good measure. To emphasize his point. It's over. He won. 

Give up. 

She rages against him, against that, knowing it's futile. Because Sasuke is stronger than most people, even for a young teenage boy. And a part of her knows that even if she has the potential to be stronger, she's not right now. Right now Sasuke is superior. She wants to spit in his face. She does. 

He contorts in disgust. "You need to calm down, idiot. Before I make you." 

The threat falls on deaf ears.

"I'll never give up. I will become strong. I will become Hokage. I will make you acknowledge me, that's a promise you bastard and I never go back on my word. So if you hold back, you'll only be screwing yourself when I become strong enough to beat you." She says this with such conviction and the seriousness she’s not known for.

Something in the air shifts at her proclamation, sending off ripples and waves too large and significant for them to understand, something they won't understand until much later. 

Sasuke is silent for a moment. And then he gets up and steps back, appraising her reddening face and gritted teeth with a smirk that looks suspiciously like _approval_. 

"Fine, you want me to take you seriously? Get up. I suppose a live dummy is better than a practice dummy. But remember, you told me not to hold back." 

She's on her feet within seconds, feral and wild now that she is free from his grip, charging at him with an animalistic snarl that slowly transitions into a full out war cry. 

Sasuke only chuckles at her depravity, Sharingan flashing, intercepting her fist before punching her in the nose. Payback for the bloodied nose she gave him prior. And despite how painful it is, she loves it. Loves being treated like an equal, a threat to be taken seriously.

They fight each other until the sun sets, and their fists communicate more than their words ever will. Their own personal seal of reconciliation.

* * *

And so they fought, and so they laughed. And before they knew it they were inseparable.

* * *

Naruto stares down the hill at Sasuke and Sasuke, naturally, stares back at her. Yesterday they fought and afterward they’d left the training field wordlessly.

Oh, they had laughed and taunted but there were no real words passed between them. Nothing to confirm if their fight had simply been a one-time thing, a spur of the moment fueled by hormones and two hot-blooded individuals.

In retrospect, she feels kind of a jerk for what she’d said to him, granted he’d said some pretty nasty things too. Still, that day had ended with laughter, bloody noses and purple bruises, and belly-deep laughter. 

So they were good, right? She could talk to him, right? There’s so much she wants to say, maybe even apologize. For a lot of things. 

She’d done a lot of thinking last night and she’s come to realize that Sasuke really is her friend, her first real friend. Or at least she wants him to be. 

All the times he’s looked out for her, defended her name, protected her. He never had to do any of it, not when she’d done nothing but be a brat to him (just looking at him sometimes made her irrationally angry and insecure), had done nothing to earn such kindness.

There’s that familiar itch to speak and move her feet, the same one she had felt before, what feels like a long time ago now.

She has two options. Walk away like a coward and regret her decision later or climb down the hill.

Naruto climbs down the hill and Sasuke watches her with keen eyes. Her steps on the pier are less sure, bellying her insecurities and uncertainties. 

_Walk away,_ her mind warns. _Keep going,_ her heart urges. 

_Don’t lose your nerve, Naruto._

There’s enough space at the edge of the pier for her to sit, so she takes it. If he wanted to, he could get up and walk away. One minute passes, then two, three. He stays and so does she. 

He stares at the depths of the lake as he’s always done, but not blankly. He’s not lost in its blackness like he usually is and she thinks for the first time, he’s not really seeing it.

He probably doesn’t remember their first encounter in the woods. He probably does and just doesn't care. Either way, she wants to say thank you, to apologize, and to ease her conscience. Perhaps then that day in the woods will stop taunting her. Perhaps then they can become proper rivals, maybe even frien-

“What do you want?” he questions. He doesn’t word it particularly harshly, but there’s some bite in there. He’s still a little pissed about yesterday no doubt. 

_Just say it. Just say it._ She gathers up her courage and says, “I was the girl from the woods, that one time,” she cringes at her shaky voice, “The one you saved from the bullies,”

He looks at her again and she tries not to squirm as he assesses her. 

He doesn’t say anything so she continues, though this time she’s the one who’s looking away, “I wanted to say thank you, for everything, and-” she closes her eyes and flushes, “And I’m sorry for being a jerk about it!”

Quickly she gets up and walks away, shoving her sweaty hands in her pocket. 

“You’re welcome,” she barely catches it when he says it.

His voice is so soft she nearly loses it in the wind.

She halts in her steps and peeks over her shoulder to see him giving her a considerate look. 

“Usuratonkachi.”

* * *

  
  


She brushes her wet hair, watches as it stretches and curls back against her skull in a rebound. It’s easier to manage when she wets it and it stays moist throughout the day when she adds conditioner. This is the only way she’s able to keep it untangled, she learned, so she always buys cheap orange scented shampoo and conditioner for a single Ryo and keeps a handy pair of scissors on her bathroom sink to cut it short whenever it grows past her ears.

Her hair becomes the topic of discussion the next time she and Sasuke meet up.

Naruto’s hair has always differed from everyone else’s. The majority of Konoha’s population has straight hair, sometimes wavy, and a small percentage has curly hair, though not as curly as hers. When it was longer, it had been one of the main sources of teasing. Whether it was because of its shade or its thickness or sheer curliness. She used to think it was pretty until everyone told her otherwise. 

She greets him with the curly mop top she’s grown used to and a bag of oranges she personally grew on her balcony. 

They sit in relative silence. He hasn’t told her to go away, yet, but she’s still at a loss for what to say. What did friends usually talk about? She already knows how his day went, she’d been with him for those stupid D-rank missions ( _for two weeks at least, especially after the mission you three had_ Kakashi-sensei had reasoned), and she’s not dumb enough to ask him about home life. 

She considers leaving and writing the whole thing off as a lost cause until he says, “Why do you cut your hair?”

The question catches her off guard but she gathers her wits about her and responds, “‘Cause I’m pretending to be a boy, dattebayo.”

“Boys can have long hair too," she bristles at his response, but then again it's true. 

Iruka-sensei has long hair and he's no less a man than someone like Kakashi-sensei.

“I’ve been doing it ever since that day. I hate when people touch my hair,” she admits, twirling a strand on her finger, moist with conditioner and water. “You don’t mind it do you?”

“Why would I?” he mumbles.

“Most people do.”

He raises a brow and scoffs. “I’m not most people.”

It’s strange for someone to simply not care about these things. Yeah, he’d said some stuff about her being a weak girl but looking back on it, he didn’t really mean it or else he wouldn’t have fought her at all. He just knows what to say to rile her up.

Still, the thought that anyone can accept her completely, without hesitation, is almost too good to be true.

“So you don’t care about me being a konketsuji, either,” she asks testily, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. 

Even Iruka-sensei felt uneasy about being around her at one point (and with a demon sealed in her gut she couldn’t exactly hold that against him, not when he showed he cared when it mattered most.). 

Sasuke simply sighs. “I don’t care. You’re still an usuratonkachi, either way.”

Naruto pouts and folds her arms, but she’s secretly pleased. “I guess you’re not all that bad, either bastard,” 

“What about you,” he questions suddenly. “You don’t care that I’m an Uchiha? Isn't that the reason why you smacked my hand away, that one time? Because I was an Uchiha?”

Naruto’s flabbergasted. 

She hadn’t been expecting that, hadn’t expected him to specifically remember that particular detail about their first encounter. 

“I didn’t even know what an Uchiha was at that time. I only did that because, well, I don’t like being saved! That’s all. It wasn’t anything against you, ‘ttebayo.” 

He pensively regards her and then returns his gaze to the lake. “Hn.”

She fidgets with the bag in her lap, filled with oranges. She opens the bag and reaches inside, pulling one out. It was fresh and ripe, a bit green but overall orange. She’d planted the seeds last autumn, around her birthday and they became ripe in January. In her opinion, they’re better than the ones sold at the market specifically because they’re hers. 

“Hey, uh, do you want one?” 

“No.” she flinches back at his smooth rejection. 

Dejectedly, she tosses the orange back in the bag. Was he really still mad about that whole thing too? She said sorry. Though maybe that’s not enough.

“I don’t like sweets,” he grumbles. 

Oh, okay. He’s not upset with her then.

“Then what do you like?”

Sasuke rolls his eyes and frowns. “Tomatoes.”

* * *

“You’re terrible at this,” Sasuke calls out and she jumps at the sound of his voice, her shuriken falling limply from her hand. 

He’s leaned back coolly against a tree, the perfect picture of indifferent and unbothered, as he eyes the worn-out target practice she’d stolen from the training grounds and the rusty ninja tools that’d missed them by a fly. 

She wants to bite back _like you’re any better_ but he is better. She’s seen him during shuriken and kunai practice back at the Academy. He’s so quick and lethal with his throws. When he throws he’s aiming for the kill. She wonders who he has in mind when he does.

“Well, it’s not like anyone helped me, I had to teach myself,” she says instead because it’s the truth. 

Back then Iruka-sensei could only help her with so much, while also dividing his attention between twenty-six other students. Mizuki-sensei had been no help at all. He’d just ridicule her in front of everyone and leave her feeling dumb and embarrassed. 

Sasuke sucks his teeth and approaches her. “For one, you’re holding it wrong,” he picks up the fallen shuriken and places it in her hand, fixing her grip on it to his liking. “Secondly, your entire stance is wrong. Your feet need to be this far apart,” he scoots her feet apart with his own. “And you need to angle your body with your target in mind.” he twists her shoulders to point her torso directly at the target. 

“But wait, wouldn't that be dangerous?”

Sasuke sighs, “Then you better make sure you get them before they get you if you ever want to be Hokage,” he stepped away and assessed her before nodding. “Now, when you throw, throw it as if you are throwing a frisbee. And don’t throw your body with it, just the tool. The metal is light so it can specifically catch on the wind but heavy and sharp enough to catch the enemy also,”

“Alright,” she isn’t sure why he’s helping her, she still considers him a rival, after all, is quick to remind him of that fact whenever they’re training or on a mission. 

But Sasuke had been at the top of their class in almost every subject. He would know, so she tries to follow as instructed and hopes for the best when her shuriken glides through the air.

It finally hits the target. Not dead in the bulls-eye but close enough. Naruto yips in joy before gripping Sasuke by the shoulder, noses nearly touching. He tenses at the contact but doesn't push away.

“You gotta teach me more cool stuff, dattebayo!”

“You thought that was cool?” his voice was disbelieving. “That was the bare minimum, usuratonkachi,”

“Don’t care, you still gotta teach me!”

Sasuke scoffs. “I don’t have to teach you anything,”

Naruto pouts mulishly. “Then why are you even here huh? Did you follow me or somethin’ just so you could tease me? If that’s the case then leave me alone, I’ll train by myself like I used to.” 

She stomps away, gathering her old ninja tools in a small woolen bag.

“Alright,” he uttered, with the faintest hint of exasperation, and she nearly trips over her feet, before whipping around to face him. “I’ll teach you a few things but you _better not_ slow me down with my training.”

Naruto hops up and down in excitement, the curly jaw-length bangs on the sides of her face flying this way and that, and Sasuke can only stare bewilderedly yet fond. 

* * *

  
  


It's the simple things he latches onto with the desperation of a man deprived, in the night, in the dark, in the graveyard he calls home.

He stares up at his ceiling and pictures it all as clear as day, wills himself to relive these moments in the vulnerability that loneliness offers. 

The sunlight catching in her hair, setting her golden skin aglow. The sparkle in her eyes, the soft tilt of her lips, a smile only for him. Just him. 

(His heart starts to beat faster and faster and he wants it to stop but at the same time, he doesn’t.)

She's not wearing her orange jacket, instead, it's tied around her hips, and for once she's not wearing those bandages. Just a sports bra (because apparently, she's that comfortable with him). For once she actually looks somewhat like a girl. The funny thing is though, there's something inherently ethereal about Naruto regardless of what she wears or pretends to be. She'd been pretty as a girl, and she was pretty as a boy too. How could she not be? 

The wide eyes, the angelic face, the effortless smooth skin, the exotic whisker marks, and the interesting shades of gold and blue that are her hair and eyes respectively. Her nose is a delicate and round button at the center of her face, her lips plump and pink, her neck long and slender, leading to lean and toned muscles beneath her glowing shoulders. 

Everywhere he looked there was muscle, a testament to how much she trained her body. 

Especially her stomach. It'd made his throat go dry the first time she took off her jacket. It makes him wonder who her parents were. If they were pretty-faced idiots too. 

What makes it even better though is that she simply doesn't care. 

After their first fight, they'd unintentionally created their own rituals. 

At first, they only spared and trained on the days they had missions, but it evolved and eventually, they started to meet up on their own. Whether it be after a long day of D-Rank missions or getting knocked into the dirt by a very amused Kakashi, the two of them would end up in the training ground alone. Just the two. 

Sometimes they would go at it for hours at a time. And she's been getting good, really good. She never stays at the same level, she only ever rises above what she achieved. Every fight was a rebirth in skills, like a phoenix. 

Sasuke thinks that's what he's starting to like most about her, among other things. And it's a motivator, to evolve just as quickly, more efficiently, better. It's also a note of pride, to know that just a few hours of sparring with him could elevate someone else's skills, that he's that good. So good that he taught without ever needing to teach. And she learned without needing to be told to learn.

(It was almost unreal, how fast she picked up on things and it makes him question the teachers who have obviously failed her in every way, for whatever reason. And yet, here she stands, against all odds.)

It always makes the next session more exciting.

The thing that makes these moments truly memorable, however, is the brown paper bag she brings with her and the contents inside. 

Oranges for her, and a single tomato, for him. 

They'd sit in the surrounding trees of the training ground during breaks and she would make sure to bring her brown paper bag along.

He'd lean against a tree and she'd lean against one across from him. She'd throw him the tomato _'because you said you liked them and I saw you eating one like the thing was a freaking apple so I figured why not?'._

He doesn't remember when they got so close. When being around her came as naturally as breathing. When he could bear to stand her idle chatter, flailing hand gestures and all. And the looks she'd give him...it was so tender, a reflection of the sun on a lazy spring afternoon and it made him feel so, so warm. It was unbelievable. It didn't make sense. These weren't the starry-eyed gazes of his fangirls, this was something else. 

Something painfully familiar. 

Today he snapped at her about it.

"Why are you looking at me like that, idiot?"

She'd flushed and looked away, mumbling something under her breath, before saying "It's just...I was thinking..."

"About?"

"About how we're kinda like friends..." she'd phrased it more like a question than a statement as if she were asking for permission to call them that. He could see her tense up slightly, waiting for the swift rejection that was sure to come.

Sasuke had only shrugged, even as his heart went aflutter. "I guess." Not a solid confirmation, a yes or a no. _I guess._

It was all she was going to get from him but it'd been enough. The smile on her face could've lit up the darkest corners of the world (of his everlasting darkness), the strength of her dense life force bursting forth in whirlpools and waves, to the point where it was hard not to be affected by her potent cheer, drowning beneath the depthful ocean that was her chakra. It was the exact opposite of killer intent if such a thing was possible. 

Her happiness had shaken him to his core. Pure genuine happiness, bright and golden, he could practically see it. She burned as brilliantly as the sun and for a moment so did he. This is what it felt like to be Naruto Uzumaki. Happiness came easily to her how emptiness came easily to him. 

All because of an 'I guess'. He might as well have hung the moon and the stars in her eyes.

As the sun began to set she'd dragged him to the Hokage monument. This was her favorite part of the day, the golden time of day. When the sunset on Konoha and the perfect spot to watch it was from on top of the Fourth Hokage's head. It was beautiful, she said. She'd only ever taken one person there, and that was Iruka-sensei. Sasuke had followed, begrudgingly, because for some reason this was important for her, and for some reason, he didn't want to hurt her feelings by saying no (and a small part of him, the best part of him, wanted to follow). It felt like some initiation of friendship or over-sentimental nonsense that only Naruto would come up with.

And she was right, it was beautiful, but he couldn't stop staring at her.

_He couldn’t stop staring at her._ Why was that? Why has it always been like that? 

Sasuke knows the answer, so he pushes it far down and locks it away. Hides the emotion behind layers of nostalgia and camaraderie and duty until on the surface it’s completely unrecognizable to the blind eye. 

Naruto is his comrade, nothing more. Nothing more. He cares for her how he cares for Sakura and Kakashi, and if it ever came between her and his vengeance, he’d choose vengeance every time.

The thought makes it less difficult to breathe, makes him rest easier.

The next day Kakashi announces that he’s signed them up for the chunin exams.

* * *

The chunin exams go as well as expected, which is to say not well at all.

* * *

His neck burns, the kind of burn you get from a venomous bite. The mark between his shoulder blade and neck is proof enough of that. The thing about regular bites though, is that you can heal them, can ease the ache with salves and suck out the poison, but this mark is forever burning, burns like ice, and it isn't going anywhere. 

He hasn't felt this type of fear, (the fear that grips at your guts with cold fingers and makes you tingle all over until you faint) since Itachi, and it's worse almost, more unnerving because Orochimaru is after him, a man once revered and feared but now just feared. 

Itachi in comparison is a shadow and as the years pass he’s more real in his mind than he is in reality, a bedtime story he tells himself to keep going on with life. Though there’s no doubt that Orochimaru is real and he wants Sasuke for whatever nefarious reason (his skin crawls at the thought of any adult being so obsessed with him) and he’s never felt like such a child, not in a long while at least. A child, however, is supposed to have someone they can turn to, someone they know is capable of protecting them. 

Sasuke only has himself and to an extent his team. And even then most of the time he’s doing the protecting. _Most of the time_ , he thinks again, looking over at Naruto’s unconscious body. Where had that sudden burst of strength come from? Was it connected to her strange healing?

He ignores the way Sakura looks at him, the fear and worry in her eyes, and does what he does best. Lock things away. Locks away the feel of corruption coursing through his body and madness chinking at his sanity. Silently he is grateful that she was there to stop him from going any further.

He checks Naruto’s pulse, steady and alive, she’s alive. A flash of relief overwhelms him and he feels it’s appropriate to think how she’s always one step behind him, even in waking up.

“What are we gonna do?” Sakura asks, looking over his shoulder at the blonde. “He’s been unconscious for a while now,”

Sasuke slightly frowns. The idiot, always getting herself hurt, and now throwing herself directly in the line of danger. He hopes she doesn’t make this a habit. 

Softly, he cradles her head and gathers her legs. She’s small and light enough for him to carry, even if his body aches all over. Besides they need to keep moving, before more enemies find them, again, and staying in this spot wouldn't be wise after being exposed to opposing groups, regardless of them being Leaf shinobi or not. 

“Is Naruto going to be okay?” 

Sasuke’s surprised by her sudden worry for Naruto, though perhaps, she's starting to change too. 

He looks down at the girl in his arms, forces himself to remember the feel of her steady pulse, and focuses on the subtle rise and fall of her chest. She’s not dead, just sleeping. 

“He’ll be fine,” he assures. “Naruto always pulls through.”

Sakura looks down at her palms, calloused and shaking. "I was scared," she confessed. "I tried to be brave but-"

"Sakura," she looks up, green eyes wide and watery. "You did fine." 

* * *

She smelled him before she saw him. He smelled of perspiration, fear, but overall a hard set determination that she'd never sensed in him before. Not even during training.

They were zipping through the treetops in the Forest of Death, the night wind slinking beneath their clothes and chilling their skin, and she was in his arms. Why was she in his arms?

The moon made his skin glow like smooth marble, as cool and timeless as a statue, and his eyes glistened like the surface of a black lake. He looked so- he looked like a hero from out of the stories. In this light, it's easy to see why everyone is so enamored with him. Why the boys are envious and the girls are dead in love with a boy they barely know. Sasuke was- he was-

He looked down at her, catching her star-struck gaze. She blushed and angrily closed her eyes. How embarrassing. 

"Hn, you're finally awake." He spoke, and she opened her eyes to see if there was really a hint of a smile on his face as it’d been in his voice. 

Not that cocky smirk he usually wore or the overconfident smirk he gave Kakashi-sensei when he got a particular kata right during practice, but a genuine, heartfelt smile. No matter how small it was, it was there and it was there for her. It was like getting a peek at the blue moon in all it's illuminated glory, something to treasure because it was so rare. 

"Sasuke? You and Sakura...you guys are alright?" The dread that'd overcame her when she fell unconscious...she never wanted to feel anything like that again. To be rendered helpless when her precious people needed her most.

She noted the other girl besides Sasuke, zipping through the treetops. Her pink hair is noticeably shorter and her eyes sad. She looked worse for wear but stronger, somehow. Changed. Naruto knows that kind of change only comes from hard lessons.

Naruto instinctively wants to reach out and comfort her, but her limbs feel heavy, like everything beneath her skin is having a hard time readjusting from whatever that snake bastard did to her. 

"Everything's alright Naruto." He assured, his voice a gentle baritone that rumbled from his chest. It was soothing. Even if things weren't okay, not even a little...he soothed her. 

"I-I can walk on my own." She put on a brave face, mulish and slightly peeved at being carried. 

She'd had everything under control, she'd been brave, even saved Sasuke for once, instead of the other way around and in the end, he's the one carrying her. Like she's some helpless damsel in distress. Was this payback for calling him a scary cat? 

"You'll only slow us down, usuratonkachi. Tch, always getting yourself hurt..." his arms unconsciously tightened around her. 

She hated how small she was (how frail her bones felt sometimes, like they might snap at any moment from the slightest upset), that he could carry her as though she were little more than a sack of fruit. She felt like a twig in his arms. 

She knew he was right though, and reluctantly, rested her head against his shoulder, her mind subconsciously supplying that in his arms she’ll be kept safe. 

It feels strange to depend on someone like _this_. She’s been on her own for so long, and rarely did anyone treat her so tenderly. 

She would be seething if she wasn't secretly happy. Happy that Sasuke cared.

* * *

"You have to tell Sakura eventually," he says, after a moment of silence. "She's our teammate after all,"

The girl in question is resting while Naruto and Sasuke keep watch. 

Naruto bristles but then slouches in defeat with a sigh. "Yeah, I guess," 

"It's strange that you haven't told her yet. She probably would have been more receptive of you," he points out and then, after a second thought, shakes his head. "Or not. Though she has changed a bit, maybe she'll be kinder. I know how much you’d like that,"

Naruto shifted uncomfortably at that, resting her chin on the palm of her hand and her elbow on her thigh. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

The next day, Naruto revealed the truth to Sakura. The girl's first reaction was to smack Naruto up the side of the head, the second was to laugh at the absurdity of it all. 

* * *

And because the chunin exams had already been horrible all around, it ended with an all-out invasion and the death of the Third Hokage, naturally. 

During this, he finds that he really does care for his team, all of them. He also finds that Naruto lives up to her name of being completely unpredictable. Facing off against an unknown like Gaara was one thing but winning was another. There’s a sliver of envy but it is mellowed when he remembers he has to carry her to the hospital afterward and that perhaps that battle was meant. 

There’s a smile on her face, wistful and raw, with tears in her eyes and blood on her skin. She almost died and yet here she was, smiling. Something good must have happened then. 

Though he can’t help but feel completely disconnected from her life at that moment because he can't discern why it is that she’s happy. 

Still, begrudgingly, he feels pride to call her his teammate, his friend even. _She really is catching up to me_ , he thinks, and when he tells her this, beneath the fluorescent lights of the hospital, she just laughs and smiles (the first she’s smiled since hearing of the Hokage’s death) and says, “You bet I am!”

“Good,” he responds, and there's a hint of a smirk on his face. “Because out of everyone, I want to fight you the most,” which in itself is logical. 

She beat Gaara, who beat Rock Lee, not to mention her fight with Neji and Kiba. Out of their entire graduating class, she’s one of the strongest, and Sasuke only ever tests his strength, _all_ of his strength, against the strongest. 

She emits a gasp, giving him that same wide-eyed starry gaze from the Forest of Death, like she can’t quite believe he’s measured her worthy enough as a shinobi on equal standing, more than a mere comrade. Then there’s that smile, that damn smile, the real one.

The smirk leaves his face and he tells her he has to leave, it’s good timing too, because Jiraiya, one of the sannin, enters. The man eyes him, almost warily, as Sasuke leaves out the door and the boy knows he senses Orochimaru’s mark. 

The way home is a silent one. He takes to the rooftops to avoid anyone and thinks, thinks hard. 

He’d heard about these types of emotions before, but had never attributed them to himself, had never thought he was capable of feeling them, of experiencing something so intense like everyone else, blind with attraction. 

He finds it bizarre now, how people can hop in and out of love, how the girls who claimed to love him proclaimed such things so boldly. In his opinion, love was something that took time, built brick by brick, it’s the only way it makes sense in his mind, the only way he can find some semblance of logic in an emotion so abstract. 

(Then there were different types of love. The love you felt for your family, your friends, your comrades, hell even your country if that was possible. )

And he doesn't know if he exactly loves her perse but he feels for her in a way that’s just as extreme as their friendship. A bond, a strong one. 

Sometimes, he sits and ponders on it, before realizing it’s simply too much for him to even do that. He becomes overwhelmed by the enormity of his feelings before completely shutting them away. 

* * *

The boy is enraptured. In awe of her resilience. And maybe just a little bit afraid.

Though it’s not the thought of her surpassing him that leaves him afraid, it’s the thought of her leaving him behind, no matter how convoluted that may sound. And he's not quite sure where this fear came from, just that it came when Itachi and Naruto's names came up in the same sentence. Two figures that he measures himself against, and he hates it. Hates that he’s still not strong enough to face Itachi when he’s been training so hard and for so long, only for Naruto to pass him up in less than a year of work. 

It was a domino effect, one-piece knocking down another until somehow he found himself challenging her on the rooftop of Konoha’s hospital. There’s shock on her face after flinching at his intense glare, the faintest sign of hesitation and then eagerness, to finally match him and end up on top. She’s confident that he’s going to lose, and Sasuke is so tired of losing. 

So when the insults spring forth from his mouth he doesn't know how to stop them, doesn't really want to. He knows what to say to rile her up, to weaken her resolve, and unleash her rage (the fight is easier to manipulate that way). Sometimes he doesn't have to do it all, she does it all on her own, as volatile as she is. 

The fight ends as quickly as it began, but he’s no less bitter than he had been before the fight. Because in the end, he has to face the reality that whatever relationship he’s had with Naruto has been strained at best and destroyed at worse. 

(The man, Jiraiya, looks at him, like he knows him, like he knows anything about Sasuke or what he’s been through, and shakes his head, as though to say, _I should have known better._ ) 

He should have never gotten close to her, should have kept her at arm's length like he’d always planned but then after everything that's happened between them how could he? How could he just-

He stamps out the thought like it’s a small fire and focuses on his anger, on his pain, the insecurities he hasn't felt or thought about since he was Itachi’s little brother. And maybe it’s unfair to project all of this onto her but he doesn't care. He just doesn't. 

Their last mission has drained him of all patience. He’s tired. Tired of Konoha and the way they’ve all forgotten about what happened to his family, how they’ve always swept it under the rug, how they’ve let Itachi run amok for years without pursuing him for his crimes, tired of the whispers that follow in his wake and the pressure weighing on his shoulders from carrying this burden alone. Tired of the mark burning on his skin, leaking _something_ into his blood, tired of Team Seven, tired of the way time is still so slow, tired of her.

Just when he thinks he’s gotten stronger she is right beside him with a new strength of her own.

They both won their matches in the preliminaries. They both faced worthy opponents. In fact, she beat Neji Hyuga (a prodigy from a prominent clan, like him) and Gaara of the Sand in the same day, and the latter had been _his_ opponent, his to conquer and defeat. And he couldn't even do that. She had been the one to save him. That was his role, not hers. He was supposed to be the protector, the strength, the savior. 

(And since when did he start caring about being any of those things?)

He learns the Chidori. She also learns a powerful jutsu _and_ summons. He gets the curse mark, she has a demonic power of her own to rival his. He garners the attention of Orochimaru, she gains the favor of both Jiraiya the Toad Sage and Tsunade the Slug Princess (and next Hokage), both of whom are quite taken with her for _her_ -the talentless orphan girl masquerading as a boy- and not because of some nearly extinct bloodline. And she's closer to achieving her dream than he is.

How could he possibly rival Itachi in strength if he couldn't even rival her? And what’s worse is how conflicted he feels.

In one moment he’s infatuated with her, obsessively so, and the next he’s jealous of her. One moment she’s an annoying distraction and in the next she’s a welcome distraction. One moment he just wants to bask in her warmth, a warmth that reminds him of how things used to be, and the next he shuns her, receding back into that cold dark cave he’s been in for the past seven years. 

A heart in constant conflict with itself. 

Then That Man returns and it's not even for him. No, it's for her. She's the prize his brother aims to claim. That’s when his heart really tears itself asunder. 

What does she have to make his brother return from the dregs, enough to cast Sasuke aside as little more than an inconvenience? 

(A small part of him still wants his brother's attention. How sick is that?) 

And why now? Why now why now why now- 

Why Naruto, why does it have to be her that he's after? Sasuke would die before he admitted it but he- he cared for her -god dammit he nearly _died_ for her- and Itachi had been _that_ close to taking her away.

All he ever does is take and Sasuke should have known it was only a matter of time before he took again. How could he have let himself become so lax as to forget that simple fact?

He'd ran all night and day just to reach her, to save her, and had the Toad Sannin not been there...he would have failed and she would be gone. 

But she hadn't needed him. Hasn't needed him for a while now. If she's the heroine then what is he? What is he?

_The boy with nothing left to lose._

The worst part is that she doesn't even know she's starting to take the lead in their little rivalry nor does she truly grasp how real it has become for Sasuke. It's still a game to her, everything always is. It's enough to make him want to strike her face whenever she smiles at him (and how horrible he is, for feeling that). Those smiles are lies, disarming, distracting lies. It was because of those damn smiles that he fell prey to weakness and mediocrity. He allowed himself to be comfortable around her because of that smile and as a result, he’d remained stagnant while she became stronger.

(One day she won’t need him anymore.)

_You'll only be screwing yourself,_ she'd said. The words haunt him until the very incarnation of madness pours into his chakra like spilled ink.

* * *

When he finally leaves she gives chase. When they finally have that promised fight, he doesn't hold back. He gives his all and then some. He wants to break her. He wants to build her up and then tear her down pillar by pillar. Her will is strong but his need for vengeance and power is stronger.

(Even when her eyes bleed red, as red as his own, and she threatens to break every bone in his body if that's what it takes to bring him back home.)

He’d forgotten who he was. An avenger. Not a friend or a rival (or a savior and protector). But an avenger.

He tries to ignore the tearing of his heart, how it twists and turns, and shreds itself to pieces. That Man said he’d have to sacrifice a friend, someone who he loved to achieve the true power of his inheritance. 

And Sasuke is tempted. Oh so tempted, but his heart bleeds as she pours her own out to him. How much he means to her (her friend, her first real friend) how much she understands him because they're both acquainted with the despair of loneliness and the thought of being that way again must kill her. 

He’s precious to her, she says, in a way that no one has ever been precious to her. 

Sasuke is both endeared and disgusted. 

She doesn't want to see someone so precious to her fall from grace, succumb to darkness. (But he's already in darkness, has been there for a while now.)

Smothered beneath the tender mercies of a mad man who wants to possess his body, crawl beneath his skin, and claim Sasuke's heritage for his own. (It doesn't matter anymore. The pride and honor and heritage, it doesn't matter anymore when there are no more Uchiha left save himself and That Man, and they'll probably both be dead by the end of all of this).

She knows it'll only lead to his demise, his death. He knows this. 

She knows it'll only cause him more pain and the thought of him being in pain tortures her. He knows this too.

_You don't have to do everything alone, Sasuke._

It’s not the shallow confession and pitiful pleading from Sakura, or the sad admission from Kakashi, but something that reverberates deep in his bones down to the marrow, into his soul, enough to make him hesitate and reconsider for a split second. 

It doesn't last but he doesn't kill her either. Even when she’s unconscious. Vulnerable. All it would take is some concentrated chakra to his hand, the crackling of a thousand birds plunged through her waning heart. 

Instead, he hovers above her, his hair tickling her peaceful face, taking in everything one last time before he leaves. He’s drained after their last earth-shattering collision and something is pulling at his soul, a tether that was once faint now stronger than ever even in the wake of his betrayal, connected to her. Drawn to her, just as he has always been drawn to her. 

(was that the moment, he wonders, the moment he realized that he was in l-that he _cared_ for her and decided that she would not be a tool for his revenge?)

It feels like flames are dancing on his tender skin, the clash of their chakra infusing with his flesh, his soul, his every breath. It's a feeling he will never forget, the black sphere, the blinding light, the vision that played before his eyes. _Naruto_ _and Sasuke_ , as they had once been, young but most of all, together. 

His lips are moist from the rainfall, cold and numb. He almost doesn't feel her lips when he does it, but her warmth bleeds through and it's the sweetest thing. Like kissing the surface of warm honey. The thought is enough to make him sick with himself. He'd tried to plunge a Chidori through her heart (and nearly succeeded), tried to take a life that he's spent the better part of the year protecting at the risk of losing his own, and it's enough to make him want to throw up. 

The self-loathing he has always felt since _that night_ increases tenfold.

The pure hatred for his own existence, his survival when those stronger than him, more worthy than him, like his father, like his mother, died.

(Sometimes he wishes it were someone else in his place and that he’d died with his family.)

Secretly, Sasuke thinks he has always hated himself. The seedlings of inadequacy that became the deadly weeds of doubt. Doubt in himself, his capabilities, his worthiness too, first, be an Uchiha and then later to be _alive_. 

At the very least his resolve is strong, stronger than it has ever been. If he could sever such a close bond then he could do anything. He's shaping up to be a man with nothing to lose, mankind's most dangerous creature.

When he leaves he doesn’t turn back, even though he wants to. If he looks back he is lost. And he hates Itachi just a little more for making him do this.)

* * *

On that day, in the Valley of the End, on the rocky bank of the river, after she fell unconscious, she'd seen him, them, together. Standing in the light, warm patches of white sunshine, a silky red tether between them pooling from her heart and into his (she didn't know where it began and ended). A bond, their bond, stronger than ever even in the face of his aversion. 

He was smiling, he was happy, at peace. A little wiser, a little older, but whole and less lonely. 

Then she woke up on Kakashi-sensei’s back, flying through the treetops, on their way back to Konoha. The bitter residual of failure stirring in her gut, eating away at her will like acid.

She’d made Sakura a promise, but Naruto’s isn't going to delude herself into believing that she didn't do it for herself just as much as she did it for Sakura, if not more. 

Naruto knows she isn't smart, she knows that she doesn't have a basic fundamental understanding of many things that others can easily pick up on, but if there’s one thing she does know it's the heart and the soul and the things that drive people to do the things that they do. 

For all that she hates the way the villagers treat her, she knows why, can empathize, and forgive and naively hope that one day their hearts may change, even if she knows they won't. 

She knows why Haku was willing to live the rest of his days in absolute servitude to the one person in his life who gave him the will to live. 

She knows why the Old Man sacrificed himself, willing to leave behind a brokenhearted grandson for the sake of the village, the sake of the many because it wouldn't matter if he lived if there was no village for Konohamaru to live in. And he wouldn't have forgiven himself if he'd failed and lived, rather than succeed and die. 

She understands why Kakashi-sensei prefers Sasuke, more than he could possibly know. And though sometimes it used to hurt her feelings she didn't really hold it against him. For whatever reason, he saw himself in Sasuke (sometimes she sees herself in Sasuke too) and was thus drawn to him more than his other two students. 

She understands why Gaara became a monster, oh she understands all too well, more than she’d like to. And she knows that that could have easily been her had she succumbed to darkness. That it still can be her, because the darkness is still there, ever the patient friend. 

To understand people was the only way to stay sane, she thinks she’d lose her mind otherwise. So she knows why Sasuke left, why he wanted to leave. Guiltily, she's had the thought herself, and she knows that if she didn't love the village as much as she did she probably would have tried to run away a long time ago. 

Knowing why doesn't make it hurt any less. Knowing why only makes it hurt more if anything. 

She and Sasuke have a bond, a strong one, and she’s not just going to let it go. 

The thought of him makes her heart hurt, tumultuous emotion wringing the muscle out like a wet rag. 

When she closes her eyes she sees him, in the white landscape of her mind. He’s always so far yet so close. And when she opens her eyes she still sees him, burned into her retina.

He’s in her every waking thought, in her every breath-and yes she knows she's starting to sound obsessed but Sasuke's her friend, her best friend. The first one she's ever had to call entirely her own.

She didn't always embrace the thought of caring for Sasuke, diving headfirst into the current of her emotions for the Uchiha like Sakura did, because the feelings are confusing, even on the surface. But distance makes the heart grow fonder and the moment he left was the moment she came undone. He was everything all at once. A brother, a friend, a rival, a-a _something_. She doesn't know. 

The thought of him makes her feel feathery light, like she’s walking on air, in the clouds.

It’s enough to make her want to scream into a pillow. And she does, several times until her throat goes sore. These aren't squeals of delight and merriment but of unadulterated rage. 

How dare he?

How dare he make her feel _precious_ and wanted and important. He'd made her feel how no one had ever made her feel. And then he just walked away, like it meant nothing to him. Like everyone who'd tried to rescue him meant nothing to him. Like their team and all the moments they shared meant nothing to him, when they meant everything to Naruto. When she knew that once upon a time it had meant everything to him too. 

If he was just going to walk away, he could have left her alone. Let her simmer in _what-ifs_ and _what could have been's_ because not knowing would have hurt less than knowing and missing what once was.

The moment she finds him she’s going to punch him in the face again before dragging him home.


	5. a funny thing, that; the passage of time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s never been acquainted with patience, but she can learn, for him she thinks she’d do anything. 
> 
> It’s about having faith, she reminds herself as she wipes away her snot and tears on the sleeve of her jacket. Bonds are built on faith. And hope is a relentless flame no matter how small in the overwhelming dark. 
> 
> Naruto holds fast to this unwavering hope, just as she holds fast to his hitai ate, a scar upon its silver surface, and slips beneath her cold and stale blankets, preparing herself for another night of restless sleep.

All things seem to die in the autumn, including the warmth. There’s a biting edge to the wind that blows through the windows of the Hokage office, but the building is so old with the smell of must and dust that even the chill of fall would do it some good.

At least, Tsunade thinks so. It’s only been a few months since she’s taken residence here but she already feels the roots taking hold, gluing her to this seat, in this room, surrounded by friend and foe alike, though more foe than friend, she knows. 

Sasuke Uchiha is gone, and the ramifications of that alone are already setting a dubious tent of doubt on her rule and leadership. She knows she needs to clean house, but where to start when the upper echelons have settled into their roles like mold to a wall? 

And sensei let them, she thinks with a frown, and takes another shot of sake. The burn is a welcome one after another gust of wind creeps into the room. It’s a treat to watch the Elders shiver.

She’s surprised Danzo isn’t outright foaming at the mouth at the thought of the Uchiha boy slipping through their fingers and into the hands of another. That had been the last Sharingan user loyal to Konoha, the last one, and he was gone with the enemy who not even a month ago invaded their home. This too makes her frown, and she rubs the creases on her forehead. Perhaps this all comes with age: stress and responsibility.

For years she floated in the abyss of memories and lost love that she’d stopped aging altogether, both figuratively and literally, and to be so abruptly thrown back into the present…

She remembers who she’s doing this for and levels Danzo with a lazy glare. 

“What?” Tuning him out is an effort in and of itself, a skill she’s learning to wield well. 

Danzo grimaces at her lackadaisical attitude and mummers, “How unbecoming, Lady Hokage.”

“Let me reiterate it for you,” the other one, she forgot the name, retorts, ever the lapdog. “Sasuke Uchiha was one of the ultimate weapons that Konoha had at its disposal. The Sharingan has been feared throughout the ages and is well known across the nations, even one was enough to keep them at bay- “

“Obviously, that’s no longer the case, considering Orochimaru quite literally blew threw our walls while we had one in our possession.”

“Nevertheless, with him gone, we need another fail-safe, one that has been doormat for far too long. It was one of the many mistakes of your predecessor to ignore the jinchuriki and we hope that you won’t follow the same mistake. It was pure luck that the jinchuriki managed to effectively use a summons to beat back Suna’s jinchuriki, who’s to say she’ll be lucky again?”

There’s an itch to tense up, to clench her fist and break her desk in half, but even a tenuous grasp on her anger is a grasp, and she holds tight to it. Instead, she folds her hands beneath her chin and smirks, “What do you suggest we do with her then?”

Danzo scoffs, “Train her, obviously. Do not play daft, Lady Hokage. ”

Tsunade makes a show of considering this, before saying, “And who, may I ask, will be training her?”

“Me.”

“You?”She looks at his face and arm, wrapped in bandages with a cane leaning against his bad hip. “How? Actually, don’t answer that. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to send her with Jiraiya.”

“Jiraiya?” he balks, and Jiraiya is bad but he’s not that bad.

“Yes, Jiraiya. He’s the only one who understands the machinations of the Fourth Hokage’s seal, has had contact with the last jinchuriki, and thus has a better grasp on the training needed to build the jinchurki’s physique. He’s the most qualified, and if the jinchuriki's stunt with the summoning is anything to go by, then he’s a damn good teacher as well. So yes, Jiraiya.”

There’s a brief intermission, the thickest of silences before Danzo reluctantly nods in approval. 

No matter how much they may undermine and challenge her word, her word, on the surface at least, is the law, and she notes with joy there’s no way to outmaneuver this decision. Not without her catching wind of it, prompting the disbandment of the council (and the establishment of a new one) or execution for treason. One of the few perks of their authoritarian society. 

“Very well then. On to other topics…”

She allows him to take the lead in the conversation, mostly in regard to their rekindled alliance with Sunagakure. 

There’s no clean and cut way to disband the council now, not unless they outright oppose her. They have their fingers dipped in every political pie, with allies across the nation, most of whom fill Konoha’s coffers with money and the mission assignments desk with shinobi. 

She knows their strengths and weaknesses, and they must know hers because the meeting continues without any further conflict.

She doesn’t offer up any information not asked for. Like the fact that the seal is weakening and the girl's chakra feels odd altogether, notwithstanding the Kyuubi’s chakra gradually bleeding into her own. Whatever had happened at the Valley of the End, had changed that girl. Tsunade just hopes it’s not for the worse. In any case, she’s safer with Jiraiya…

Jiraiya who brings whispers of an organization known as the Akatsuki, and other sinister things, like the tension brewing between neighboring nations and nations in war with itself. 

It all starts off that way, with whispers, tension, and inner conflict, all preludes to a full-blown war. She would know, she’s lived through two. And perhaps that is what has Danzo at the edge of his seat. She wonders if it’s for the right reason, if he has Konoha’s interest in mind or his own, or if Konoha’s interest and his interest are one and the same to him. But he seems to genuinely care about the livelihood of this village.

Be that as it may, his efforts to serve it have been in vain, for it seems like just when the Leaf begins to heal the village is always dealt with another killing blow. Tearing itself asunder from the inside out. It’s a wonder that Konoha still stands, though for how long? It’d be just her luck for everything to come tumbling down while _she’s_ the Hokage.

* * *

“So that’s it then, you’re putting her off on me,” Jiraiya chuckles jokingly. “Figures. I can’t say I didn’t have the same idea,”

Tsunade rolls her eyes and swirls the bottle of sake before taking a large swig, discarding all pretense of being a non-alcoholic. “It’s either you or Danzo,”

At that Jiraiya grows somber. “So, he’s still power-hungry,” he leans against the wall and folds his arms, shaking his head. “I can’t believe the old man became so lenient, not just with Danzo but with everyone. It’s hard sometimes to reconcile the man who he became with the man from our youth,”

“It’s not the power itself that Danzo covets but the control that comes with it. It’s obvious that he trusts no one but himself to get things done around here. Having control over it all would make things easier for him,” Tsunade shrugs, “ And you forget that it was never sensei’s intention to take the hat again. When Minato had become Hokage, sensei washed his hands clean of this village and was ready to grow old and die peacefully. But then…”

“But then,” he reiterates with a sigh. 

But then Minato died, and Hiruzen’s students were all gone, with no intention of ever coming back. 

“So here we are.”

“So here we are,” Jiraiya echoed. “It’s a wonder Danzo didn’t try to get ahold of Naruto when she was far more impressionable than she is now and vulnerable to,”

Tsunade lifts a brow. “Vulnerable how?” 

From what she’s seen there’s nothing vulnerable about that little girl. She knows some shinobi who would have broken up like wet tissue at the thought of facing Orochimaru or any of his disciples, but despite her recklessness, she hadn’t been afraid, not even a little. 

“They don’t like her much, Tsunade, and she’s insecure about a lot of things but none more so than her skin. Most of the village’s hostility comes from her status as jinchuriki, but the fact that she stands out doesn’t help matters either,” he explained, which she reluctantly agreed was true. 

Her own mother, Akari Senju, had been half-Uzumaki, the daughter of the First Hokage, and even she couldn’t escape the stigma that came with standing out. Tsunade’s mother had also borne three whisker marks upon her cheeks with skin a little too dark to fit in with the rigorous beauty standards of the time. And when they’d travel outside of Konoha, where she was known as the Hokage’s daughter into the world where she was not known at all, she’d be met with hostility, sometimes disgust. Businesses would deny service and close their doors until they learned exactly who’s service they’d denied. Status had somewhat saved Tsunade’s mother but she hardly doubts Naruto was afforded the same luxury most of the time. 

Tsunade would be a fool to think that much has changed in that regard, not when she herself, in her youth, had religiously applied bleach cream to her skin to attain a pale countenance, and now in old age retains a youthful appearance through ambiguous means. 

“I remember a time when she probably would have been celebrated,” he continues, “When Uzushiogakure was still around and people still remembered the name of the First Hokage’s wife. Though, even Kushina dealt with these problems. It’s strange how fast things change but I guess it’s to be expected. Still, if anything can be learned from all this madness, is that a hurt child is an easily manipulated child. Danzo could have capitalized on that, but he didn’t,”

Then it clicked. “Perhaps that’s one of the few things the old man did right,”

_“_ What’s that?”

“Keeping her out of Danzo’s hand,”

“Yeah,”

“You’ve made mistakes too, you know,” she pointed out harshly. “You were her god-father and you left her alone in this vipers nest,”

Jiraiya visibly flinches and says, quite stupidly, “She turned out fine,”

He says this, after divulging into an entire dialogue on how she in fact did not turn out fine.

Really, sometimes Tsunade just couldn’t stand him. It was a constant battle to refrain from punching him in the face and breaking it seven different ways, especially when he purposely became obtuse. 

“Did she really?” she responded flatly. 

“Listen, I’ll make up for it now,” he placated.

_“_ You better,” she threatened, not so much with her words but with her eyes, and finished off the last ounces of sake. “So what about the other one?”

Jiraiya frowns in confusion.“What ‘other’ one?”

“Don’t play stupid, I’m talking about the pink one,” she sits the sake bottle down with a click and wipes the residual off her lips. “Sakura. Sakura Haruno.”

“Right, Sakura,” Jiraiya rubs his chin, “Well, I’m not quite sure. Maybe you can take her on?”

Tsunade takes this into consideration. “Maybe. But she’ll have to come to me first. Above anything else, she has to want my tutelage for herself,”

* * *

It’s decided then, that it’s in everyone’s best interest for Naruto to leave the village with Jiraiya, to keep her safe from both Danzo and the Akatsuki. In legal terms, he’s been authorized to take over the protection, authority, guardianship, and instruction of Naruto Uzumaki. 

Tsunade will do the same for Sakura if the girl ever approaches the Slug Princess, to put her on even footing with the rest of her team, defected or otherwise.

There’s no telling what Orochimaru will be doing to Sasuke’s mind, warping his beliefs and ideologies further than he probably already has, and the girls have to be prepared if they seek to get him back. Jiraiya knows from experience that it’s a pipe dream, knows that eventually the trio will come to blows and bonds will be further ruined. Once you go down the path of revenge and power there is no point of return. 

Sasuke has chosen his path and Naruto must choose hers. Try getting the brat to understand that though.

Jiraiya laments the fact that Naruto is bent on saving Sasuke. Tsunade remarks that he was the same with Orochimaru once, to which he retorts that’s exactly _why_ he laments her determination to get her wayward teammate back.

Then Tsunade jokingly says perhaps it’s because Naruto is in love with Sasuke, which is why she’s a bit more determined than he was, and that Kushina wasn’t much older when she fell in love with Minato. Jiraiya doesn't even want to entertain the thought, a dreadful one may he add. The feeling is equal parts biased (toward the Uchiha) and protective (of Naruto).

Sasuke Uchiha was not Minato Namikaze. 

Minato had an undeniable charm. Jiraiya _can_ be honest and say that beneath that sunny facade, he’d been cold and calculative, a bit ruthless when it came to his enemies. Still, Minato had overall been sound of mind and judgment when it came to diplomatic matters and politics. Which is why he’d managed to befriend and hold the regard of every future clan head in Konoha despite being a foreigner from Kumogakure. That boy had come to Konoha with a plan and was bent on seeing it through. However, despite his ambition, he’d been kind to Kushina, gentle and sweet like a lover should be.

Jiraiya’s not quite certain the Uchiha could ever measure up to that. From what he’s seen the boy doesn’t even know how to smile. From what he’s seen the boy is willing to walk over and discard anyone who stands in the way of his goals, ambitious but not in the healthy way. 

What could she possibly see in such a cold-hearted boy?

Tsunade smiles bitterly, “We’re only human and we love who we love.”

* * *

Jiraiya tells Naruto to give up on Sasuke, to which she stubbornly responds _no_ , that she’d rather be stupid for the rest of her life if giving up on Sasuke is what it means to be wise.

Tsunade is wrong. He understands love, he’s just terrified of what it can drive people to do.

* * *

Naruto has the strangest of dreams. She’d once dreamt of an island filled with giant leaping toads, green webbed feet landing on lily pads the size of a pond and thicker than three brick walls. She’d once dreamt of red, red hair and a thousand thousand golden chains, brighter than starlight. But when she wakes she only remembers the fragments of these dreams. Not the things that were said, felt, heard, or the immaculate detail of the background, the human brain can only grasp so much, but the things that clung to her wakeful consciousness when she rose in the morning. 

But ever since that day, at the valley, it feels as though she doesn’t really dream anymore. Or, better yet, her dreams do not feel like her own. And when she wakes her mind makes sure she does not forget. How could she, when everything was captured in such detail, playing out like films on repeat? 

In her dreams, she is a creature. 

A great big creature, the size of small mountains, ascending to a place equal in light and darkness. The heavens themself. She feels the grass beneath her feet, the brush of treetops against her hindlegs, claws sinking into the soil, unrooting boulders. There’s a grainy matter between her sharp teeth because when she inhales she seems to swallow the world whole. 

A creature that expands and grows and wanders the new earth. Lesser beasts are afraid because they should be. How could they not? When her flesh is made of burning fire, and the sun itself rests in her bosom, and when it unfurls it sets the sky alight, turns the rivers and fields red, and turns life itself into black ash. And she is a vengeful and jealous creature, quick to anger, it would take nothing to incite her rage. 

She could crush a thousand legions beneath her palm, could wipe an empire off the face of the earth, and walk away unscathed. It’s a terrible thing to behold, a smattering of blood as thick as wax painting the ground, twisted corpses with stricken looks of horror forever immortalized on their faces, and the screams, oh the screams. The smells alone-so foul. 

( _Men shit themselves when facing death,_ the beast whispers.)

In her darker dreams, it is Konoha that she’s leveling to the ground, with a single blast from her mouth, until the shadows of her victims are stained on their godforsaken walls, walls that twist and melt and glow white-hot. Her fists take delight in punching craters into the faces that line the mountain and there’s a certain thrill that comes from toppling buildings with the beat of her tails and-

Granny Tsunade wakes her, a gentle palm glowing green resting on her sweaty forehead. Naruto melts into it and licks her dry lips wet. The older woman sucks her teeth with a worried frown before removing her hand to jot down some notes. 

“Another restless dream?” she questions.

“Yeah,” Naruto forces herself to sit up and cracks her neck until it strains. 

“What about?”

Naruto shrugs. “I don’t really remember Granny Tsunade,” she lies, with a sheepish smile. 

She’s afraid of what might happen if she tells the truth. What the older woman might think of her.

Granny Tsunade has run every test and it is clear, even to someone as dense as Naruto, that the Kyuubi is starting to influence her more and more. To what extent, the older woman doesn’t know, but Naruto doesn’t want her to find out. Doesn’t want to lose someone else how she lost Sasuke. 

_What the hell are you?_

Naruto looks at her palms, such tender flesh, and alive with something. It crawls and spreads with hunger, eating away at what’s already there. 

_What the hell are you?_ It stung to have Sasuke say that to her, to see him look at her that way. 

Even now, she bites her lip to suppress a whimper lest she whines like a kicked dog. 

“Don’t worry brat, you’re going to be alright. Just-” Tsunade sighs, and she sounds every bit her age even though she doesn’t look it. “Take it easy.”

“Yeah, yeah I know,” the child responds easily enough, waving a careless hand. “When can I leave?”

She ignores the knot sitting heavy in her throat. 

Granny Tsunade lightly smacks her on the head before placing a tray on her lap, consisting of a plain bowl of rice, soup, and slices of fruit. “You can leave when I say you can leave. So stop asking and eat up.”

When Tsunade leaves Naruto looks back down at her palms. The room is the palest shades of green and stark white, so impersonal and abstract, with the strong scent of iodoform and antiseptic. There’s a static beep, beep, beep coming from the hospital machinery that grates on her nerves. She hates hospitals. So she stares at her palms, willing them to give her solace and comfort. Instead, they throb with an ache like the rest of her body. 

It’s easy to notice it then, the faintest hint of an outline dead-center on her right palm. Easy to miss the first time, with the way it almost blends into the white of her palm, but the color is off, lacking the undertone from the brown palm lines. 

She traces it with the thumb of her left hand, a faint circle, tingly with something new, though not entirely unfamiliar. Her mind takes her back to the Valley of the End, the clashing of chakra so raw and powerful that it left her body tender for days after. Her thumb presses against it, the tingle spreading to her fingertips and up her wrist, until it envelops every inch of skin, down to the soles of her feet. Smothering the ache that once was.

The world falls away then. No pale rooms smelling of chemicals, loud with machines. No white sheets, and white curtains and white walls. Just her and this feeling, tugging softly, familiar, so familiar-

“Brat!” Pervy Sage calls, his voice dragging her back. “Good, you’re awake. We need to talk.”

The feeling fades fast like a dying flame and she feels a bud of resentment for the man.

It doesn’t last long, not when he tells her he plans to train her. 

* * *

If one were to look into the homely abode of Naruto Uzumaki they’d find yellowing posters on cracked walls and splotches of dried ink on molding wooden floors. Old dishes left discarded in the sink, ramen cups left idly on the countertops, dirty laundry left unwashed and dusty corners filled with cobwebs and overflowing plants. 

“This is home,” she says and removes her shoes with a wince; body still sore, body still aching. 

Maybe she should have stayed at the medical center longer.

There was a crawl beneath her skin that had yet to subside, akin to pins and needles, the echos felt long after a fight. She feels like she’s fought a thousand battles. In truth, she’d fought her friend, far more tiresome, more taxing.

Naruto plops down on her bed, buries her face in her hands, and cries. 

At the hospital, she’d held it together for as long as she could. Put on a big smile with talks of bravado and preconceived triumphs yet to come, saving the sadness for tomorrow like she always does, but now it descends upon her with a terrible vengeance. 

What if she never sees him again? she thinks with a sob. What if she comes too late and he’s long gone? She imagines it in her mind’s eye. A stranger with yellow eyes staring out from Sasuke’s face, inhabiting Sasuke’s body. Cold yellow eyes that feel nothing when they see her. Or worse, black ones.

She may very well lose her friend in more ways than one. Pervy Sage had been sure to remind her of that before sending her on her way. Though she’s starting to think the man simply doesn’t like Sasuke, and he’d rather her give up on him completely. 

She won’t, she can’t. It would be cowardice to give up so easily and she likes to think that she knows Sasuke well enough to know that he won’t submit to a man like Orochimaru. 

She’s never been acquainted with patience, but she can learn, for him she thinks she’d do anything. 

_It’s about having faith,_ she reminds herself as she wipes away her snot and tears on the sleeve of her jacket. Bonds are built on faith. And hope is a relentless flame no matter how small in the overwhelming dark. 

Naruto holds fast to this unwavering hope, just as she holds fast to his hitai ate, a scar upon its silver surface, and slips beneath her cold and stale blankets, preparing herself for another night of restless sleep.

* * *

Iruka-sensei visits her on her thirteenth birthday to help her pack for her journey. He greets her with a cake and a warm smile. It takes everything in her not to bawl like a baby. She does, however, throw herself in his arms and he nearly drops the cake trying to catch her.

He lightly criticizes the state of her apartment in that familiar way that he does and tells her to clean it up if she hopes to get ramen later. And it’s so comforting that Naruto doesn't even complain.

She’s a person of few possessions so when she packs she gets a worn-out backpack and fills it with said possessions. A brush and a comb for her hair. A toothbrush, a bottle of conditioner, and shampoo. A few pairs of underwear and the sports bras with the whirlpool sewn into the back. Her infamous bar of ivory soap, an extra pair of orange pants, and zori. She contemplates bringing the photo of Team Seven with her, a bittersweet memento, and decides against it. It’s right where it belongs. Home.

Home. What did that word mean to her? Had it ever meant anything at all?

“I know it’s hard but change is a part of growing up,” Iruka places a gentle hand on her curly head, “You've done well so far. And I’m proud of you, Naruto.”

_I’m proud of you._ Naruto hugs him again, revels in the feel of him hugging her back with no hesitation. The act is free and comforting, and so very very rare for her that she’s afraid to let go.

* * *

It’s the strangest thing, looking back at her empty apartment, situated at the very top of the complex, and feeling nothing at all. Not even a twinkle of sadness. 

It’s only when she reaches the gates to see Sakura, Iruka-sensei, and Granny Tsunade waiting for her, ready to send her off, that she feels any semblance of sadness, and this too is bittersweet. 

A thing that she can't bring along with her, something that she must leave home.

And then she realizes that a home is more than a place, that you could find a home in the people around you. 

She wonders...if Sasuke ever found a home in her and if it hurt to leave it behind.

* * *

His mouth wired shut, a demon on his back, the tip of its icy claw trailing up and down his spine. This is the first thought, the first memory that springs upon him like a beast in the wild after entering Orochimaru’s hideout.

Sasuke remembers being a boy, younger than eight but older than six, and being afraid of going to sleep. His father would frown, shake his head, disappointed at this blatant display of weakness. Dreams aren’t something to be afraid of, aren’t something to fear, to the point you dread the thought of closing your eyes. 

How Sasuke had wished that was true, how he wishes that were so now, years later. 

But his father would frown and shake his head, tell him to go back to bed. When his mother would try to make Fugaku relent, his father would only say he was too old to sleep in the bed with his parents, he wasn’t a baby anymore. 

His mother was never one to disobey in the matters of turning boys to men, so she would smile apologetically and softly tell Sasuke to go back to bed. 

Sasuke knew better than to pout or whine. He would, however, (once out of the sight of his father) pitifully drag his feet as he walked away, unbecoming of an Uchiha, his little stuffed dinosaur hanging limply in his hand. 

And then, just like clockwork-

Itachi would peek out of his bedroom door, gaze quietly at his little brother (eyes gentle, dark, and long-lashed like a heifer calf), and step out to rub his head.

_It’s okay, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Dreams are just dreams. Shadows are just shadows, and the dark always gives way to light, in the end,_ he would say, he would lie, before slinking back into the darkness of his own room. 

Sasuke knew better then, as he tucked himself into bed, and Sasuke knows better now.

Still, sleep is something that can’t be denied, yielding to sleep is simply inevitable. So, with much trepidation, Sasuke would close his eyes and pray for a dreamless night.

Then, as though no time passed at all, he would open his eyes. He notes that it’s always on his stomach that he opens his eyes.

He’s just a little boy, younger than eight but older than six and his limbs are dead to him, and he is dead to the world. It’s enough to make him want to scream, but then he realizes with sudden horror that his jaw feels wired shut. There’s that natural instinct to want to scream, the vibrations climbing up the throat with desperate claws and then- a wall in the form of his lips wired shut.

A cold sweat comes and settles but he doesn’t really feel it. No instead, in his mind’s eye, all he feels is the demon on his back, holding him down, with its finger leaving trails of ice up and down his spine. Until it builds and mounts and swells like a bubble fit to burst beneath his skin. Until the feeling isn’t painful so much as it’s simply unbearable. An unbearable tickle, ice-cold like static.

He doesn’t see it, he never sees it, but he feels it, he feels it.

Dead limbs and a wired jaw, at the tender mercies of a _thing_.

Then, there’s this naive hope, the kind only a child can have. That someone may sense his distress, perhaps his brother or his mother. They’ll walk in, turn on the lights and the demon will vanish just from their presence alone. And the light too will make it cower. But they never do come and the demon stays, and it’s with a dawning dread that he realizes he has to deal with this on his own, has to fight it on his own, that he has to save himself from this _kanashibari_. 

So he fights, the best way he can, with his mind. The demon is not real, he tells himself, the feeling is only a feeling, and though he can’t scream with his mouth, he can scream in his head. Scream prayers and curses alike.

Dreams are just dreams, shadows are just shadows, and the dark always gives way to light, his wise older brother had said. And then just as suddenly as the demon would appear, it would go away, and he could move again. His brother was right, he’d tell himself, before yielding to sleep once more.

Years later, Itachi became the demon on his back, the shadow in the dark that had made the dreams a reality long before the dreams manifested. 

So is Orochimaru too, in a way. He’ll handle him how he’s always handled his demons. 

He replays the same mantra from his childhood in his head (because even if it’s from that man, it’s a good one) and walks through the weeping halls of the hideout, walks past the cages that yawn with turmoil. Inhales the smell of chemicals, bleach, the underlying scent of blood that he’s all too familiar with, and walks. Locks the feeling of terror, the realization that he has quite literally walked into a snake’s den. 

It wasn't that Sasuke Uchiha was incapable of feeling anything, it was that he felt too much. He'd always felt too much, the constant source of his father's disapproval, his brother's distance, and his mother's pity.

He stares up at the ceiling, in the confines of his new room, morbidly impersonal in their starkness. Then he closes his eyes and yields to sleep. 

* * *

“Perhaps you are not as capable as Lord Orochimaru thought you were,” Kabuto crooned.

Orochimaru himself only looked on from the sidelines in blatant displeasure, disappointed with Sasuke’s inability to disarm Kabuto. How many times had his face been planted in the dirt? He could taste the grains of it on his tongue, a mixture of earth and blood. The taste of defeat. 

“You are still weak, like that demon child,” he continued and Sasuke’s ribs screamed in pain as he rose to his feet, legs pathetically shaky and worn but defiant. Always defiant. 

“Weak like your parents,”

Sasuke stilled, paralyzed. It had been years since anyone mentioned his parents to him. They’re always there though. At the back of his mind, at the forefront of his mind but always, always, there. 

_Weak like your parents_. It’s said with so much arrogance, so much- Sasuke grits his teeth, a heat in his bosom, the heart of the beast itself stirred awake.

His fingers found the dirt with new resolve, found the handle of dull steel. His eyes burned a white-hot, scalding chakra building up behind the sockets, but the form of the man across from him could not have been more clearer at that moment.

At the ends of his vision, he sees the makings of a smirk on a pale face and knows that this time he will triumph.

* * *

The first thing he does is wake up, it's the first thing anyone can do. It’s always five o'clock in the morning when he does, and the other inhabitants of the hideout aren’t quite awake yet, so there are no screams of horror or moans of pain to greet him. 

The silence is a blessing. 

He blinks away the bleariness from his eyes before wincing at the fluorescent lights and white walls and floors. He places one foot on said floor, then another, shivering from the cold. He drinks a cup of water that sits idly on his nightstand, ( a reminder that he is not alone, a reminder that someone has complete unhindered access to him, a reminder that privacy was a price he was willing to pay) before heading to the showers to release waste and cleanse himself. 

When he returns there’s a plate of food waiting for him at his door, a serving of fish, rice, and raw vegetables. Most would deem this a privilege even though it’s a necessity, and he feels like an animal whenever he picks up the tray with every intention of eating the contents it holds. 

He dresses in whatever is provided without much thought and as if on clockwork, Kabuto is waiting outside the door for him. The man greets him with thinly veiled disdain and indifference and leads him to the labs.

This one in particular smells of antiseptic and bleach, meaning it's just been cleaned of any remaining fluids from their early morning experiments.

He is seated before his sleeve is rolled up and his arm exposed. Kabuto douses a cotton ball with alcohol and rubs the selected portion of skin right above the deltoid beneath. Sasuke doesn’t flinch when the needle is inserted into the muscle of his upper arm. 

Orochimaru says this is for the betterment of his body, to give him every possible advantage. He says that Sasuke is naturally a tall boy, who’ll soon grow into his stocky frame, like most of the men from his clan. False flattery and praise. 

Sasuke doesn’t care for any of that and Orochimaru, being the genius that he claims to be, soon figures this out, knowing he’ll have to try another angle to fully get into Sasuke’s head. It’s not enough that he’s already within the man’s grasp, he needs the boy’s mind too. But Sasuke’s built up so many walls, so many doors with locks and keys long lost. He simply nods and lets Kabuto inject him with steroids and ignores Orochimaru’s pensive gaze.

* * *

Everything is done and said with a measure of impersonality. There’s a set schedule, a certain way things must be done, and an unspoken set of rules that must be followed. 

He’s not allowed to go into the left-wing, where the majority of the ongoing experiments are located, he’s not allowed to interact with any of the captives locked behind bars like animals, and he’s not to interact with any of the shinobi unless specifically ordered to do so. 

He wakes, he eats, he trains, he sleeps. In between those things he disposes of waste, showers to cleanse himself of sweat, dresses how Orochimaru wants him to dress, speaks only when he is spoken to, and thinks for hours. There’s so much time to think and so much to think about. 

(Sometimes he even thinks about her, when he knows he shouldn't. He feels like a child sneaking candy every time he does.)

Entirely human things done in an entirely inhumane environment. It makes him feel like a creature instead. 

* * *

Sasuke finds that it is easy to break the rules and that he doesn’t really care about keeping to them anyway. 

Sasuke also finds that even in corruption there is order. He imagines that without order, even the illusion of it, there would be complete anarchy.

* * *

  
  


Sasuke eventually interacts with the other shinobi under Orochimaru, two of which are no older than him, studying under Orochimaru to become wards of their own hideouts. 

Only the cream of the crop are selected, the top shinobi with impeccable skill. The sannin isn’t careless enough to put anyone as dictatorial or controlling or manipulative as him in charge, but he’s smart enough to make sure they have enough finesse to control a population. 

The hideouts are composed of all the same components: wardens, shinobi, and experiments. Wardens powerful enough to protect the base from outsiders and who can be Orochimaru’s eyes and ears within the base itself. The shinobi are the soldiers, the servants who follow the commands the warden relays from the snake sannin. The experiments… they’re there for whenever Orochimaru has use of them. 

The first warden hopeful is a girl named Karin, with red hair and eyes framed with glasses, and the second is an older boy named Takerio Kano with dark hair, sharp teeth, and glossy blue eyes that seem too small for his pale face. 

Sasuke isn’t nearly clueless enough to think Orochimaru didn’t tell them to approach him under the falsehood of companionship but he plays along anyway, anything to gather more information on the man.

It’s been nearly a year, his fourteenth birthday has come and gone, and Sasuke feels as though he hasn’t learned a thing about him at all. And it is not out of personal interest but the innate need in every shinobi worth his kunai to know about his enemy. Because Orochimaru is the enemy, or at least, he will be, in time. 

“We’re going on a mission,” the young man proclaims. “And Lord Orochimaru wants you to join us.” 

This comes as a surprise. He hasn’t left beyond the grounds of the hideout since his arrival. Sasuke simply nods and internally ruminates on what, exactly, the snake’s aim is.

* * *

Sasuke figures it out soon enough.

An average mission for any ninja usually lasts no longer than two weeks if they’re efficient enough. The mission itself is one of recruitment. Though he’s not certain if it’s in a similar fashion he was recruited to Orochimaru’s ranks. 

“I’m sending multiple parties out to the Land of Steam,” the man explains over a map. A slender pale finger traces the borders between Sound, Steam, and Fire.“ Though your group will be going to The Land of Canyon and the disputed land that lies between Canyon and Sound. There’s been an influx of deserters and refugees,” Orochimaru’s face twists a bit, a crack of madness in the shape of glistening yellow eyes, before returning to its neutral corpse-like pallor. Always a shifting, living thing, this man’s face. 

“There have been rumors of a brewing civil war in Kirigakure,” he continues. The Kano boy stiffens ever so slightly, but it does not go unnoticed by Orochimaru. “Desperate souls are easy to sway. Bitter hearts even more so,”

And if they just so happen to have a kekkei genkai all the better. 

* * *

Though this mission isn’t really a mission at all. If anything it’s a test in skill and loyalty, perhaps for all three of them. 

A waste of time, truth be told. Sasuke deserted Konoha and went to the Snake Sannin because he wanted to gain in the skill department. And loyalty was subjective. Sasuke’s only loyal to his goals, anything else was a moot point. As long as the Snake filled his end of the bargain (even if the Uchiha never intends on keeping his end), Sasuke would be semi-compliant but never loyal. 

If anything this is a miscalculation on the sannin’s part. 

Orochimaru had been a child prodigy, naturally gifted in every art he put his mind to and consequently became a genius later in life. Perhaps among his peers, Sasuke had been deemed the same, but he knows that he had to work hard, very hard, for every skill he has. As a result, he’s distant from people but only by choice. It’s the difference between people like him and people like Orochimaru. Despite everything, Sasuke understands people, understands ambition, and drive. Despite his supposed genius, he’s still incredibly human, even when he doesn’t want to be. 

So, it’s easy, painfully so, to get into the good graces of Karin and Takerio. He’s silent at first, studying from afar as they make their way from point A to point B, while the other two converses amongst themselves, occasionally trying and failing to ask him questions to which he only responds with nods and grunts. 

It’s only when Takerio asks what village Sasuke’s from that he responds with actual words, 

“Konoha,” he says and then without a beat. “What about you two?”

Getting them to talk about themselves as a possible segway to questions he wanted to be answered was a common tactic used among the Uchiha Police Force. He’d read about it once in some of the old handbooks his father kept in his solar. 

Karin is hesitant at first, blushing at every question he shoots her way but after a while her lips become loose, and once she’s comfortable the other is quick to follow. She’s from Kusagakure, while the boy is from Kirigakure. Both are warden hopefuls. This information is inconsequential. He stores it in his mind but he’s not entirely invested in it. 

The first _real_ thing he learns is that Orochimaru has many pathways and tunnels constructed with the hideouts serving as a focal point for all of them. They’re scattered throughout the nations, buried deep beneath the earth in a complex labyrinth. Some of them are connected to each other, and one could walk from one base to another, crossing borders beneath the nations. The only exception being the Southern Hideout located on an island near the Land of Waves, where she wants to be allocated. _To be far from Orochimaru_ is left unsaid but it is heavily implied. 

Takerio reluctantly adds that the pathways are hidden, most abandoned in place for new and safer routes, some of which he aided in construction with a bloodline ability unique to one of the Kiri islands. The guy is a bit of a braggart, he notes, but then again most people from Kiri are. Sasuke can infer that the Kiri native has all the pathways mapped out and reminds himself to keep that one close. He can be of use in the future. 

* * *

“I'm from the Kano clan, a once nomadic tribe that roamed isle from isle without ever using a boat. You see, we have a bloodline unique only to us, one that allows us to cultivate tunnels and bridges and whatnot with ice. It’s also good for building homes, especially for a clan that moved around a lot.” Takerio explained one night, by the light of their campfire. “Though, during the purges, the majority of us were wiped out....even the children, right along with the rest of the clans that had bloodlines. If those who escaped were not lucky enough to be accepted by a village we were hunted for our abilities. I was, for a time. That’s right when Lord Orochimaru found me. What about you guys?” he asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Karin grumbled. Her moods have been fluctuating ever since they left the Land of Rice. She either grows oddly fidgety around Sasuke or enraged around Takerio but Sasuke pays it no mind. 

He’s been feeling odd himself lately. Every time he closes his eyes he feels like he’s inadvertently peeking at something beyond himself. Akin to staring blankly at the night sky, at the gaping abyss filled with stars burning light-years away, and being overwhelmed with a strange anxiety for your own existence. Then there’s the ambiance that rings in his ears, tickles the tail of his subconscious with the pull of _something_. Whatever it is, it’s strong and adamant. It’s similar to how he felt that day at the valley of the end after… god, it feels so long ago now but he remembers everything. His eyes have made certain that he never forgets.

“I mean,” Takerio began with the roll of his eyes, bringing Sasuke back to the present. “What clan are you from and how’d you end up with Orochimaru? There must be something special about you, there always is. It’s the only way to gain the attention of a man like him.”

Karin bit her lip, glancing shyly at Sasuke, “Well, I’m from the Uzumaki clan,”

The ambiance grows louder suddenly. Sasuke stares straight into the burning flames and his gaze never wavers no matter how irritatingly bright or hot.

“You probably haven't heard of them,” she continues. “They were wiped out a long time ago,”

_Uzumaki_ , he thinks (because he knows this name, has said it so many times, whispered it into his pillow at night like a lover would), and tries not to laugh at the irony of it all.

Why is it that it’s so common a thing for an entire people to be wiped off the face of the earth, he wonders? In every country, in every corner. It’s to the point that he grows numb to it, it’s no longer shocking, he’s desensitized, immune, but he’s no less disgusted with the ways of the world.

Karin tells her tale of escape, death, and war that led her into the snake’s den, and after, Sasuke begrudgingly tells his. 

“Why would Kiri be thrown into a civil war?” Sasuke asks, when the fire is low and the stars match the moon in brilliance.

Takerio twitches, a grimace on his lips. “It’s not very hard to imagine, in fact, one might say it was a long time coming,” he begins, and he stares into the flames, knowing it will not harm his eyes now that the heat is weak. 

A long time coming, he says but the thought is morbid to Sasuke. Traitor and deserter that he is, there was still some semblance of love for his home village, still that longing, pangs best forgotten. Old memories. Horrible memories. A few good ones. Not quite. They were his to keep all the same, safe from Orochimaru's eyes. Which is why he couldn't imagine setting flame to it. 

What could drive someone to turn against their brethren? Itachi did with no other motivation than pride, he reminded himself, and it made sense then. 

“Kirigakure has always been divided,” Takerio continued. “If you are rich it is because you were blessed by the gods themselves for your good deeds in the past life, and if you're poor you are wickedness reincarnated. Let us forget the fact that the powerful families have always dictated the lives of the lessers, the poor. But better a poor man, a poor shinobi, than a man who can’t manipulate chakra at all. The less said about the evil bloodline clans with our wretched conspiracies the better,”

There was great bitterness, a burning loathing that shined bright in his eyes. Sasuke felt like he could relate, though he would never voice this. As a boy, he had seen things he couldn't quite understand and the hostility had been felt, no matter how subtle it had been, but looking at Takerio it’s easier to place a name to it. The cold cutting blade of injustice, the vicious sting of prejudice. Why though? The questions loom like a foreboding shadow. Sasuke seizes the feeling rising up and throws it to the farthest pits of his mind.

“I wager every village is unjust and cruel to its people. But they always stay in line, to rebel would only make them look weak, would make it easier for men like Orochimaru to swoop in and take advantage,” Sasuke reasons. “So why are they fighting, when other nations have learned to bear,”

Takerio’s eyes sharpened something lethal. “Why did you leave your village? Why would you seek power from a man with no sense of morality?” 

Sasuke grit his teeth in annoyance, and yet...he felt compelled to answer, in hopes he’d receive an answer to his own question. “Because I had no other choice,”

“Exactly. They don’t have a choice either,”

The two shinobi stared at each other for what felt like a lifetime. Karin coughed and broke the silence. “Maybe we should put out the fire and rest,”

Sasuke let out a small grunt in agreement. 

* * *

Suna is hot, was the first thought that entered Naruto’s mind upon entering the Village Hidden in the Sand. Truth be told, all of Wind Country seemed to burn beneath the heated gaze of the sun, sucking all the moisture from the air. She felt like a fish out of water. Sweat pooled beneath her armpits, soaking into the jacket of her orange tracksuit, and her lips chapped in the arid and dry weather. She couldn’t forget the sand. There was so much sand. Beneath her clothes, in her underwear, in her hair and eyes and mouth, between her toes. 

Why in the world would anyone choose to live here?

Pervy Sage verified his identity to the two chunin guarding the entrance to the village, a small layered valley filled with shadows, before leading them inside.

“What are we doing here again?” she droned. There wasn’t even enough energy to be annoyed much less sound annoyed, and she was afraid if she spoke more sand would end up in her mouth. 

“I’m here to inform our allies about the threat of the Akatsuki,” Pervy Sage responded with a bemused grin. “You’re here to make nice with Suna’s Jinchuriki.”

“You mean Gaara?” Naruto hadn’t seen the boy since...well, since she knocked some sense into him or at least tried to. Looking back at that moment now it feels like a lifetime ago. There was still a Team Seven back then and Gaara was...broken. 

She quickly pushed the thought away and instead marveled at the architecture around her. The buildings were made from brown clay and dusted over with golden sand. Every other corner there was a bazaar, draped in colorful dyed cloths for shading and lined with stands owned by merchants selling their wares. There were windowless hovels and mud-brick shops, two-story apartments carved from brimstone, and in the distance stood the Kazekage’s Office. Round and sandy, it was a far cry from the Hokage’s office back at Konoha. This office looked more like a palace than anything else and screamed opulence. 

She started to observe the people as well, began to look at the type of clothes they wore, and while in Konoha she stood out like a sore thumb, in Suna she felt like an odd duckling waddling through a sea of long tunics, scarfs, vales, and plain trousers. All muted and tame colors, but the further they traveled toward the palace, the more bright and intricate the clothing became. The buildings became more spacious too, less cluttered, and packed together. 

Naruto loved Konoha but she could begrudgingly admit that Suna had its charm. 

“Will we visit other hidden villages?” She asked. Naruto wouldn’t mind seeing other countries if they were all this strange and different. 

“Maybe kid. Now be quiet for a second.” The old man steadily approached a Suna ninja with red markings on his face and a white veil on his head. Behind him were three familiar faces. The giant fan wielding girl who fought Shikamaru during the Chunin Exams, the weird face paint and cat ears boy who tried to bully Konohamaru, and Gaara. 

Jiraiya gave his tale-tell over the top (and lame) introduction and in response, the white veil guy gave a stiff greeting in return. The two of the other three teens blanched, while Gaara stared blankly, clearly unimpressed. Kami, she really wishes Pervy Sage would stop doing that.

Their eyes trailed from the striking figure of the Toad Sage to her. Scrawny, sweaty, and orange. 

She smiled sheepishly and waved.

* * *

The walk to the Sand Siblings quarters was long and thick with silence. Granted the last time she’d seen any of them was when she was in the perusal of Gaara with Sasuke and Sakura. 

Silence has always made her fidgety and so she does what she does best. Makes noise.

“So you guys live here or something?” she blurts out, scratching her nose just to use her hands. “Like in here?”

The girl, Temari, she'd called herself, scoffed. “Obviously.” _You idiot_ was left unsaid but Naruto heard it all the same and pouted.

The thought that anyone could live in a place so big was unbelievable but when she looked around it was clear that The Kazekage’s Office was more than just an office. It was a home, or a house, filled with empty rooms bigger than her apartment and servants and ninja scurrying about. There were paintings of men bearing a slight resemblance to Gaara and statues of former Kazekages and famous Suna ninja lining the walls of long halls. 

The two older siblings never looked at her directly but she stayed within their line of sight, and they were always behind her and Gaara. Only when they finally made it to the quarters did they walk ahead, leading her to her temporary room. 

“You’ll be sharing a room with Gaara,” Temari stated matter of factly, leaving no room for argument. The older girl watched her, waiting for a reaction. Naruto looked at Gaara, who hadn’t spoken a word to her since she arrived, and shrugged. 

“Okay, not a big deal.” Was she supposed to be bothered by sharing a room with a boy? She’d shared tents with Sasuke plenty of times and once they’d even peed together!

Temari’s eyes widened ever so slightly before falling back into her regular frown. “Good. If you need anything, Kankuro and I will be down the hall.”

With that, the older siblings left the two jinchuriki to their own devices. 

The room was spacious with emblems and kanji on the walls, and a large window that led to a balcony overlooking the village. In the center of the room laid two futons, of better make and quality than the one in her apartment back at Konoha. It even smells nice too, like burning oils and incense, absent of those musty fumes that lingered around her apartment building. 

It felt like heaven when she flat out dropped her body onto one of the mattresses, spread eagle. She and Pervy Sage had been traveling for _weeks_ through the Land of Fire, then past the borders between Rain and River, before finally making it to Wind. Not to mention the laborious trek _through_ Wind just to reach Suna. 

“Woo, man. I swear the bottoms of my sandals are melted by now. How do you do it Gaara?” she propped herself up on her elbows and looked up at the boy who still stood by the doorway. His posture was closed off but his eyes were wide, as though he hadn’t been expecting her to address him directly. 

“I suppose when you’ve lived here all your life...the heat is something you become used to overtime,” his words were spoken carefully, and calmly, a far cry from the crazed ramblings she’d known. It was like she was speaking to a different person. Had her actions really changed him that much and that fast? It was hard to reconcile the boy from before to the boy right now but she found herself feeling giddy at the thought. 

She shrugged off her traveling backpack and unzipped her jacket, sighing at the feel of cool air touching her skin. 

Gaara stuttered.

Naruto blinked at that, before remembering she’d settled for wearing a sports bra beneath her jacket and nothing else.

“Oh, yeah. I’m a girl by the way.”

* * *

“So you’re still trying to make chunin?” she asked, feeling a twinkle of jealousy when Gaara nodded affirmatively. 

She’d be doing the same if she were still in Konoha. No doubt the rest of her graduating class are of the same mindset. By the time she gets back, she’ll still be a genin while everyone else…

Whatever! She’s still going to be a kickass ninja no matter what rank she makes. “Well, I’m rooting for you Gaara!” she counted it as a victory when the boy smiled, ever so slightly. In her head, she’d made a game out of it, out of how many times she could get Gaara to smile. 

They sat across from each other, a pitcher of water and a plate of sliced oranges between them. Gaara had them brought in after asking her if she was hungry and her stating how much she loved oranges, only second to ramen. 

She’d washed off in the bathroom ( joined to their room) hours before and now lounged about in comfortable froggy themed pajamas. 

“What about you, Naruto?” Gaara inquired. “I see you’re traveling with one of the legendary sannin, are you a pupil of his now?”

“Heh, yeah,” she grew solemn. “He’s going to train me so I can protect myself from the Akatsuki and...save Sasuke when the time comes.”

Gaara noted the change in her mood, the way she slightly slouched and her eyes drooped. 

“Naruto,” he began, hesitantly reaching for her hand, before stopping himself and pulling away. “I’m rooting for you too.”

At that Naruto beamed.

* * *

It wasn’t that Temari was afraid of her brother, not anymore at least. He’d changed. A lot. It’s just that she hadn’t been expecting him. The way he goes on and on about Naruto she’d thought he’d be more than preoccupied now that the boy was here with him. 

Instead, she finds him at her door, ten minutes to midnight. 

“Naruto’s a girl,” he doesn’t blurt so much as he bluntly makes this proclamation but she’s been watching Gaara since he was a baby, knows how to read his face very well (needed to in order to avoid his infamous wrath...when he still had his infamous wrath) so she knows without a shadow of a doubt that Gaara is currently flustered. Maybe it’d been a mistake to make them share a room.

How the hell was she supposed to know that Naruto was a girl? Especially with that orange getup and short haircut, not to mention her personality. It was a well-known fact throughout all the nations that kunoichi from Konoha were delicate little flowers, more prone to healing than fighting. Temari had seen it for herself. It wasn't hard to think so either, when in contrast, the girls in Suna were flowers, true, but flowers that grew with thorns laced in sweet poison- deadly to the touch- blooming in the harsh sands beneath a blazing sun. But Naruto...that little girl had taken on Gaara in _that_ form and _won_. 

_She didn’t just win,_ Temari thought, _she changed him...for the better._

Her flower was a rare breed if it could tame the beast within her brother.

“Huh, she really is unpredictable,” she folded her arms. “How does this make you feel?”

Whenever Gaara was confronted with a difficult situation or a new emotion he came to her about it, knowing she would analyze it in a way that he could understand and as a result compartmentalize and get a grasp on his own feelings. And she always started off by asking how he felt. For so long others had decided that for him, even in their terror.

She sat down on her bed and crossed her legs, waiting for him to respond. 

Gaara processed the question and allowed himself to think about how he felt. “In truth, I feel more or less the same about Naruto as I did before I found out she was a girl. And those feelings in and of itself were...overwhelming,”

The feelings I have for her were one of the many driving forces that pushed me to truly reshape myself as a person for the better. There were other factors as well. My battle with Rock Lee proved I wasn’t untouchable, my battle with Naruto proved that I was beatable, and in the aftermath, after everything was said and done…you two were there to pick me up and carry me home, after everything I’d done to you... it’d proved that love was real and that it was there all along. But Naruto…” he paused, considering his next words, “Naruto had ultimately been the spark that lit the flame and for that, I’ll forever be thankful.”

Temari studied him for a moment and then smiled, a twinkle in her eye. “I see...well maybe, before she leaves, you should suggest becoming penpals, to keep in contact with her. Also, take her to the markets to get some better clothes for the weather. Show her around a little, let her try some of our food, you know stuff like that to show her how thankful you are.”

“Do you think she’ll want to? Do you think she’ll like it?” even though he didn’t show it as clearly as others, Gaara was nervous.

It was like a breath of fresh air, seeing Gaara act his age. 

“Oh, she’ll love it.”

* * *

Naruto loved it. It was one thing to observe the village but it was another to interact with it. At first, she’d been hesitant to enjoy herself, not with the negative reception Gaara was receiving.

It was noticeable. The way people shied away and whispered, the fear that hung in the air whenever Gaara approached a stand. It was tangible. 

“Hey, are you alright?” she’d asked because it’s something she would’ve wanted someone to ask her. At least at the beginning, when it would have mattered the most. 

“I’m fine,” he answered but somehow she knew...he wasn't. “The fear isn’t unwarranted Naruto. I’ve done terrible things to these people.”

“Well, it’s not too late to change their hearts,” she’d responded, eager to cheer up her friend. “Just like with me and Konoha!”

At that, she’d noticed everyone was paying attention to her just as much as they were paying attention to him. Naruto being Naruto, used that to her advantage, drawing all of the attention solely onto herself.

She was like a hurricane, sweeping everyone up with her loud voice and exuberant nature, dragging Gaara behind her hand in hand. The people became less wary and more curious if anything, to see the boy they were so frightened of being pulled here and there by a tiny blond-haired child dressed in neon orange.

She marveled at the expensive dyed skirts and tunics, expensive specifically because they were dyed and dye was worth more than the thread the clothes were made with. The designs were symmetrical, circles encasing diamonds with sewn-in beads, and the colors complement each other, the blue and orange tunic and trousers to be exact. 

She’d looked at Gama, her little froggy coin pouch, and wondered if Wind Country shared the same currency as Fire Country. And then Gaara, noting the source of her fixation, had bought it for her, to which she readily protested and he eagerly insisted. He won in the end, and though she disliked the idea of someone buying something for her, it secretly made her happy that he cared enough to do it.

They spent the day together looking at the clothing booths that filled the bazaars and trying out samples of food. Most of which were spicy. Food in Fire Country tended to be mild in flavor but she found herself taking a liking to desert buns, Suna’s version of a curry bun covered in spicy powder. The blood oranges were both equal parts sweet and sour, and the crimson flesh fascinated her. Then there was the buttermilk chicken, fried and crispy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside. It was amazing! If she didn’t love ramen so much she’s sure she’d be hooked on this stuff! Gaara stuck to his sweets; rice pudding and dried fruit and Suna’s legendary sand dumplings, essentially dango covered in flour. She hadn’t had this much fun since...Sasuke. 

She swallowed her guilt. 

_Gaara’s your friend too,_ she told herself, _you can have fun with him too._

“Man, I don’t want this day to end. By tomorrow Pervy Sage is going to be ready to get back on road, and then it’s all work and no play from there on out,” she grumbled, stuffing another bun in her mouth. “I’m gonna miss hanging out with you.”

Sometimes it got lonely and Pervy Sage wasn’t the best company to keep, even when he decided he actually wanted to teach her something. She missed being around someone her age. She missed a lot of things.

They sat on some swings in an empty playground, her newly bought clothes folded neatly in a paper bag at her feet. The chains creaked as she used her feet to push herself to and fro. Gaara stood beside her, opting to stand because of the gord on his back. He was ostensibly lost in contemplation. Sometimes he’d get like that when he had something he really wanted to tell her but needed time to pick the right words to say. She quickly learned to just wait. It kind of reminded her of Sas-

“We should write to each other,” he said, cutting off her line of thought. He was much like his sister in that he stated things so bluntly and matter of factly, that it left no room for argument. 

She wouldn’t have argued anyhow.

“Hell yeah, we should!” she exclaimed, bouncing on her seat. “Oo, I can even get Pervy Sage to let me send Gamakichi or Gamatatsu to you, that way our letters can reach each other faster, dattebayo! And I can send you pictures and gifts and stuff-” 

Gaara looked on at her fondly, listening as she went on and on about hypotheticals.

(From afar Temari and Kankuro watched on (stealthily hidden by some desert bushes that just happened to be there. How convenient.), the former in absolute glee, the latter in slight outrage. “I can’t believe this kid’s managed to catch a date before me, and I’m supposed to be the older brother.”

Temari only shrugged and said, “You’re also the middle child, it can’t be helped.” and ignored Kankuro’s indignant spluttering.)

* * *

He felt his heart skip a beat when she waved at him. “I’m gonna miss you Gaara. I promise I’m gonna write to you whenever I can!”

“As will I, Naruto.” he managed to say in response. She gave him that smile he’d grown fond of. 

He wanted to remember her like this. Dressed in pretty Suna attire, blue accented with orange, bringing out the blue of her eyes and the caramel of her skin, with the wind catching on her blonde hair. 

Gaara watched with sadness as his friend walked away and grew smaller and smaller on the horizon until she faded into the light of the sun.

* * *

The desert was an unforgiving place, that much she had learned, but there was nothing deadlier than a desert wind at full strength nor the sand it carried. In the distance, shards of glass loomed large, glistening a fiery red in the setting sun. It looked like still flames. Gaara had told her a tale, one that his uncle had told him so long ago, of the sun goddess Amaterasu and her terrible wrath that set the land aflame and made glass the size of mountains rise from the earth. No matter how much larger they had been in the past, they were no bigger than buildings now, and even then they were glorious to behold.

Pervy Sage began to wrap his face up with a scarf and Naruto followed suit. 

“Shit,” he began, voice competing with the wind. “I didn't think we’d be caught up in a sand storm. There’s not a village within miles,”

“Oh, well that’s just great,” Naruto grumbles. She hardly doubted their tents could withstand the coming storm. “What are we going to do?”

She’d heard sand storms were strong enough to shred a man to his bare-bones. The wind hissed violently, scraping against her naked hands, as though it were agreeing with her. 

“Well, if we sit still, we’ll die and if we keep moving, we’ll die,” Jiraiya said this casually, as though he were choosing between sake or women. 

Naruto spotted something on the horizon, black dots that looked vaguely like people. 

“Hey, Pervy Sage, why don’t we go over there with them? They seem like they know what they’re doing,” she lied. 

Naruto had no idea what the hell they were doing, but it was better than sitting around waiting to be turned into shredded meat for the crows. The Land of Birds wasn't so far and did not lack in vultures and crows that flew to the Land of Wind for desperate meals caught in the sand. 

“Huh, alright. Why the hell not,”

It took all of thirty minutes to reach the strangers or more like a tribe of people. They moved to and fro, diligently and quickly dressing their pavilions with thick leathery animal skins, herding goats into wide and deep holes before covering it as well, using a mixture of sand and clay to form around the thick stakes holding the pavilion to the earth and ushering the elderly and children into the shelter. 

Naruto noted immediately that each and every person had bandages wrapped tightly around their eyes and yet they moved with the proficiency of someone with impeccable sight. 

Jiraiya was the first to approach them. The movement immediately stopped. With no eyes to see they turned to face them, and with no eyes to see Naruto felt them assessing her.

* * *

In return for shelter, they were made to help maintain the foundations of the pavilion. Which meant mixing clay and sand to form around the many stakes and skins that made the pavilion a safe haven, to begin with. 

They finished just within enough time to dodge the worst of the storm. Or at least the beginning of it. The thick plumes of dust and smoke that’d begun to slip into the air, rushing forth like a tide to choke the breath away from any sentient thing near it. It howled and moaned like it was a living thing, and when they thought it would relent come morning it dashed their hopes.

The pavilion did its job, strong enough to withstand the storm against all odds and large enough to fit fifty people. Naruto had counted each body to pass the time until it was easier to rest, and now she observes them more. Jiraiya warns her to stop staring, that blind they may be, they are not foolish. Still, she can’t help herself, not when they have skin as dark as hers, some even darker, and hair just as coarse. She’s never seen so many people who look like her in one place, yet skin color seems to be the only thing she has in common with them.

They have a different style of dress, similar to all the desert dwellers in Wind, with bronze piercings in their ears and ink tattoos on their hands, and rows of braids in their hair that touch the small of their back. Though the main thing is that they can alternate between two different dialects, the one she speaks and their own. 

They must be sharp too, sharper than most to survive so long in a desert without sight. 

She watches with keen interest as one girl braids another's hair, combs it through with oil before folding one strand over another to form a single braid. 

Naruto speaks before she can stop herself. “Hey, why do you guys do that?” The girl stops to shift her head toward Naruto. 

It’s not blatant but Naruto can tell the girl is lifting an incredulous eyebrow at her. Jiraiya also gives her a look before shaking his head in exasperation. 

Naruto flushes in embarrassment, “Well, it’s just that my hair is kinda like yours and I’d like to know,”

The older girl regards her for another moment before turning her focus back toward braiding the other's hair, “It’s a protective style that helps the hair grow,” she explains, “And it lasts longer.”

That makes sense. Everything about the braids is steady, sturdy, and tight, strong enough to keep the braids from unraveling. It’s durable, practical, and beautiful to look at. Naruto is too prideful to ask the other girl to do the same to her hair and she doesn't offer, anyhow. Naruto just focuses on the motion of the girl's hands, the way she weaves with deft fingers, and feels a drop of envy. A yearning for what they have, something she has always lacked, something she has always been denied. To have a culture to call her own or better yet to be allowed to take part in the one she grew up with without being viciously rejected. 

_I don’t even know who I am or what I am_ , she realizes with sadness, _just a name, and a purpose_. Naruto Uzumaki, ninja of the Hidden Leaf, and jinchuriki of the nine-tails. Titles with no depth or beauty.

She wants to know who she is but no one ever cared to tell her.

Who were her parents? she wonders, where did they come from? It’s in moments like these that she feels terribly lost and alone. 

On the third day, a group is sent out to patch up the cracks in the pavilion where sand slips through. The storm still rages on, but compared to the first couple of days it is calm, and if they wrap up good enough their skin will remain unscathed. Naruto is among this group. It gives her a great opportunity to ask more questions and the braiding girl, Akari, answers no matter how minutely. 

Like, how they’re able to navigate the lands so effortlessly without sight, to which she answers, it’s because her people have walked the land for hundreds if not thousands of years, so moving about is second nature. They listen with their ears and when there are no storms they see with their mouths, whistling to measure the distance. They’re so in tune with the land that they can feel the earth's vibrations beneath their feet and that helps them move about. It’s how they saw Pervy Sage approach without their eyes. 

“Why are you all blind?” Naruto winces at her own bluntness, but the other girl only chuckles. It’s louder than the wind somehow. 

“You don’t mince your words do you? I like that, it means that people never have to wonder with you,” the older girl shrugs, scooping up a handful of adobe before smearing it on a small opening, “My people are blind simply because we are. There has yet to be a child born with sight because there has yet to be a child born with eyes. Some say it’s a curse, others a blessing. Most don’t care, either way, this is simply the way life has always been and always will be,”

“And how come you guys always move around?”

The question makes the girl pause, a slight stutter in her fingers. “We didn't always move around,” she admits, “We had a village, like everyone else, just shy on the border between Bird, Wind, and Stone. It was taken by criminals. We managed to escape but...there are many who we left behind to their tender mercies and we’re not doing better ourselves. Sometimes people come and steal women and girls away. We can fend them off most of the time, when we’re in large groups, but if a girl is hunting or gathering water from a river alone she’s not likely to come back, and most of the time we can’t send people in large groups, not when we have to take care of the elderly and children. It’s one of the reasons why we let you and your guardian in, the more help the better,”

Naruto feels her gut churn in horror, feels that familiar righteous anger creeping in. 

“Well, we’re ninja!” she proclaims, because she’s always held to the belief that ninjas are supposed to help people. “Maybe we can do something about this because it’s not right,”

The girl smiles sadly, “I hardly doubt there is much you can do or that your guardian will be okay with it. The storm will end soon, and you two will be on your way,”

Naruto frowned, “Pervy Sage may be an old pervert but I’m positive he wouldn't mind helping. I’ll just ask him when we get back inside!”

* * *

Pervy Sage did mind actually. They stand outside, now that the wind has settled and the smoke has receded. 

“We’re leaving in the morning Naruto,” he speaks bluntly. “The plan was to come to Wind to visit Sunagakure and leave. None of this was apart of said plan,”

Naruto scoffs in disbelief, “But they let us in and they didn't even have to!”

“That was their choice,” he sighs, “And they will be fully compensated,”

“They don’t need our money, they need our help!” she stomps her feet, because the way he’s looking at her makes her feel silly and hysterical, but there’s nothing silly about this situation and she hates when people do that to her. Make her voice feel unheard and insignificant. “We can’t just leave! We’re shinobi, we’re supposed to help people,”

She couldn't stress this enough but the man wouldn't budge. “Shinobi only work for a price, and it’s dangerous. We’re in unpredictable land with unpredictable weather. We need to stay on track and remain unseen until you're fit to return to Konoha.”

Naruto felt her opinion of Pervy Sage slowly dropping. “But that’s not fair!”

“You more than anyone should know by now that life isn't fair,” he responded. Naruto glared.

“That’s bullshit! You’re a- a,” Naruto thought of the nastiest, most derogatory thing she could call him. “A cocksukcer!”

Jiraiya’s eyes bulged out of his sockets. “What?! Where in the hell did you learn a word like that!”

“Your mom!” she shouts with a sneer, before spinning on her heel and marching away. 

“Naruto don’t walk away from me!”

* * *

Naruto had had to learn wrong from right and right from wrong on her own but it’d been a lesson she’d learned fast. It was wrong to steal what you did not buy or earn, wrong to take from those who had less than, wrong to take advantage of the weak and vulnerable. It was wrong to lie unprovoked, wrong to deceive and manipulate.

She’d only ever stolen once in her life, the first time she ran out of money for food, and she’d been so scared when she got caught that she swore to never do it again. And there have been so many times that she’s been the weak and vulnerable preyed upon that she spots that same vulnerability in others. Everyone lies, even her, but she’d never do it with malicious intent, never do it to conceal a great truth that must be spoken. 

It’s with this thought in mind that she presses Akari for more answers, despite Jiraiya’s disapproving glare. The men she describes sound like shinobi, rather than mere criminals. The girl describes great bursts of chakra and abilities unfamiliar to her people, the shifting of stone and earth with a call from their mouth. At that, Pervy Sage grows interested. He throws her an irritated look but silently concedes. Fine, they’d look into it.

“We should take you guys to Suna, it’s safer there than out here,” everyone bristles at her suggestion, including Pervy Sage.

“I hardly doubt they would welcome us, villages rarely welcome refugees without a price,” Akari reasons. Jiraiya looks like he agrees.

Naruto smirks. “They’ll be fully _compensated_ , right Pervy Sage?” and the look the old man gives her is long-suffering. 

* * *

It’s with this triumph in mind that she contacts Gaara. In the black of night, a ways away from the pavilion housing the saviors that’d taken her in, she summoned Gamakichi to deliver a message. The writing was messy, a smattering of ink on smooth parchment written in haste and darkness. The toad wraps a thick tongue around the scroll before disappearing in a poof of smoke.

No matter how many people told her otherwise, no matter how many iterations of the ninja code and ninja way were shoved down her throat, she refused to be dissuaded from her personal truths. That right was right and wrong was wrong, and there would always be a difference between the two. You always had a choice to pick one, she would always go right. 

Jiraiya and Naruto wait with the wanderers for another two days until Gaara and his siblings arrive, a physical answer to her plea. The clan of blind women and children present themselves. Temari is hesitant and Kankuro appears indifferent but it is Gaara who looks most determined to take these people in, to make right with his soul by making right with the world first. 

“We need no compensation,” he speaks first and Jiraiya looks relieved almost. “You're a citizen of Wind, and that alone allows you entry,”

One by one their faces light up, and Akari gives Naruto a look of gratitude. 

When both girls pack to leave, hope in their hearts and a lightness in their step, Akari offers to braid Naruto’s hair, as a way of thanks. 

Naruto hesitates. She doesn't want to overstep, doesn't want to take what does not belong. “Are you sure?” she asks.

“Don’t be silly,” the girl laughs. “Come here, I’ll be quick.”

* * *

“I’ll admit, we will have to pull some teeth on this,” Temari starts, “But Baki agrees that with Gaara’s insistence the council shall relent, given he’s in line to be the next Kazekage once he makes chunin,”

Jiraiya rubs at his chin in thought but Naruto yelps in surprise, eyes finding Gaara’s. “You're going to be the next Kazekage?”

“Yes, it was agreed some time ago that I would be trained for the title,” he explains but it makes the news no less shocking. Gaara explains some more, “The system is quite different in Sunagakure compared to Konoha’s system. The position isn't necessarily earned by great feats but depending on the worthiness of the noble selected. But it will always be a _noble_ , someone from an old and powerful clan. The council has selected me, as they did my father before me,”

“O-oh,” she stutters. She’d never thought of him as a noble, someone of greater social standing than her but thinking back on the palace-like office he lived in, with the rooms larger than her apartment, it made sense. Why else would he live there?

“I hope this doesn't change me in your eyes,” Gaara says, insistent that his hope is made real. Naruto flushes.

“No, of course it doesn't,” she agrees, before flushing some more, “Thank you for-”

Gaara raises his hand to halt her words. “It need not even be said. You are a friend to me, whenever you need me I’ll come.”

After that, both groups parted ways. Gaara and the entourage he’d gathered walking South, while Naruto and Jiraiya moved North.

* * *

During the start of their journey she makes it a point not to talk to him, doesn't even look his way.

It’s not so much the fact that he’d been willing to do the wrong thing but that there had been no guilt. There still wasn't. He’s completely absolved of it. As though he’s done this many a time before, turned his back on doing the right thing, only to care on a sudden whim.

The walk to civilization is a long one because he leaves her to her stubborn silences until she finally snaps. “Why did you suddenly change your mind anyway, huh?”

Jiraiya groans, “It’s my duty as a shinobi of Konoha to gather information about the world outside it and send it back to the Hokage,” he sends her a pointed glare, “Which is the only reason why we’re investigating brat, so don’t get all cocky,”

“I’m not,” she huffs, though she is proud of her deed. 

She twirls a braid that curls at the base of her neck, a reminder of the good she did in the world. It was like watering a plant, tending to it, making it grow. It proved that she wasn't so bad after all.

Pervy Sage considers her for a moment, the wind rustling his hair. “I’ll admit though, that was some politicking you did there. A little rocky. Had Gaara not been so fond of you, it would have fallen apart, but...you used the resources you had. A little trickery too, milking that girl for more information until something caught my interest. That had been a gamble in and of itself. Still, not bad, since it turned out in your favor,”

Naruto tried not to beam at the praise, no matter how back-handed it was. People rarely gave her praise. Sometimes Sasuke would, after training. _Not bad,_ he’d say with a playful smirk. The thought made her stomach flutter and her heart ache. 

“What do you mean Gaara is fond of me?” Naruto asks, to rid herself of thoughts about Sasuke and his playful smiles. 

It hurt too much to think about him in the broad daylight. Thoughts of him were reserved for the night and the night alone. 

“I mean the boy likes you. A lot.” 

Naruto frowned, confused by his answer but then Jiraiya began walking a little bit ahead of her and she couldn’t find it in herself to challenge his belief.

“Come on, we need to be quick about all this,” he shouted hurriedly. 

Naruto picked up her pace.

* * *

“What is your affiliation?” a man, an Iwa shinobi, demands.

Karin had been surprised to find their ilk here. According to her, it had been an unspoken thing between the nations surrounding the disputed land between Canyon and Sound, that this piece of land would be for Orochimaru to claim. Folly on his part. Why would they wait for him?

But wait they should have apparently. “We’ll have to notify him at once,” Karin had said, with a slight shudder. 

Orochimaru sent word back via his snake summon not long after, a trick he’d started teaching Sasuke not too long ago. 

_Stay and watch_ , had been his only response.

Now they walked under a heavy illusion Sasuke had cast on them with his Sharingan. They looked like simple civilians, field hands and smiths the Iwa shinobi could put to task with the rest of the people they have locked away behind fences. 

“No affiliation sir,” Karin speaks for them. She put on a good act, masked beneath a layer of chakra that made her hair a mousy brown and eyes a dull black. “We were told to come here,” 

Not once did she lift her head to meet his eyes. Directed. Commanded. Subservient. She portrayed these qualities well. The man did not spare them another glance before pointing them somewhere else, a sort of labor camp where people toiled endlessly, backs stiff and bent as they worked. 

“Orochimaru will not like this,” Karin commented later that night, in a small shack they could barely fit in. It’s where all the prisoners were housed; like chickens in a coop.

Takerio shrugged in indifference but Sasuke was curious.

“How come?”

The girl shifted uncomfortably. “He’d planned a long time ago to monopolize the lands surrounding Sound. Lands like these have the natural resources Sound mostly lacks. Though those plans were delayed because he...he needed a new vessel,” the girl squirmed. 

_Me_ , Sasuke realized. _I delayed his plans_. It didn't matter if it was indirectly. Perhaps these people have been saved from an even worse fate. Though this is hardly better. Coerced into servitude by a powerful foreign force, too weak to fight back.

“I’m guessing he planned to take over after he claimed me then,” Sasuke concluded, and then sucked his teeth in distaste. “But now he must wait while others seize the opportunity for their own,”

Karin nodded, “Though I suspect that now he may begin to enact those plans in a hurry. He needs a force to match Konoha after all, the attack on the Leaf will be the first of many,”

“How do you know all this?”

“He likes to ramble to all his underlings, he’s arrogant enough to believe that all his plans will succeed no matter who he tells them to,”

They stay there for another night after Orochimaru sends them a missive. He wants them to watch for any weakness, gather any information that can be weaponized against the Iwa shinobi. 

Everything about their mission felt odd then. It had started off as one for recruitment and then turned into something else along the way. There was a stirring, an unease. He felt like a domino piece waiting to be knocked over onto the next. On and on it would go until towers began to fall to. Truth be told he doesn't even know how he ended up here, behind these fences, a barrier between the rest of the world. The travel was murky with bits and pieces shining through with the luminosity of a clear lake. Like the walk through the wilderness at the start of their journey, and the night by the fire speaking of woes, and the arrival itself but nothing more. He’d floated seamlessly across the land like a ghost and scarcely recalled the path he took to reach his destination. A puppet, a thing on strings he was, and something had guided him with practiced and swift hands. It filled him with great unease, dread even, to have his fate so thoroughly controlled by a power unknown and unseen by him.

He tried to think of the day that awaited him tomorrow. The monotony of digging and hacking for ore, mindlessly like a mule beneath the unforgiving summer sun. The stale bread he would be given would turn to dust in his stomach and the water would taste of ash. The taste of a defeat with new flavors. He’d bite his tongue and bear with the glib remarks shot his way or otherwise. All the while he would listen and sniff out any weakness right alongside his comrades. 

The ambiance returned with a vengeance, louder than ever before, and when he closed his eyes to sleep, he saw not the blood on the walls or crumbled bodies on the floor, but hair kissed by the sun and skin kissed by gold.

* * *

It takes them by surprise when Takerio detects someone with a kekkei genkai.

The girl is like a cornered animal, gaunt and tired, but still fighting, still resilient. It kind of reminds him of…

She’s with two small children who favor her in looks. It’s obvious that they all have special bloodlines if the sharp and cold crystal that rises from the ground like fungus is anything to go by, though they’re criminally untrained and outnumbered besides. 

This is what Orochimaru was looking for. _Desperate souls are easy to sway. Bitter hearts even more so._

They have the same glossy blue eyes and inky black hair as Takerio and it’s enough to give the older boy pause. She can’t be any older than him but in comparison, she looks impossibly young and frail. Like she’s led a hard life, for a long time. A very long time.

The girl herself is frozen, feet wrapped in Takerio’s ice, but then he quickly relents when he hears a pair of guards coming their way.

There is conflict, Sasuke can see it in the way Takerio grows silent for long periods of time, unusually brooding for a person so seemingly unfazed by the world around him. 

Sometimes he’ll be on the precipice of thought and then nothing. Even stranger is his gentleness with the captives, always attentive to their basic needs. Giving them his share of food, his water, his breaks.

“Where are you from?” Takerio asks, voice barely decibel above the static sound of picks hitting the overburden, reaching for the minerals beneath. 

The girl jumps and eyes the boy warily, but her hands never stop moving.

“You're not supposed to talk to them,” Karin hisses. Takerio ignores her.

The girl fidgets in the chains the Iwa shinobi must have thrown her in when they found her, specifically made to suppress her chakra. “I’m from the Land of Can-”

“No,” Takerio interrupts with a bite. “Where are you really from?”

The girl stiffens and swallows her spit. She deliberates for a moment, probably wondering if the more she speaks the more chances she has to get out of this situation. “The Kano clan of Kirigakure.”

Sasuke sees the moment Takerio’s conflict is resolved.

* * *

The Kiri natives began to speak in a language only familiar to them. It sounds rough and guttural to Sasuke’s ears, but the girl seems more at ease, hopeful almost.

“I feel like we’ve been here forever,” Karin comments. 

They’re well into their second week on this mission, any longer and they’ll be starting their third. And Sasuke silently agrees that it does in fact feel like it’s taking forever. Takerio is walking them in circles, stalling for time. Time that none of them can afford. 

By now they’ve gotten the Iwa shinobi’s routine down to a fault. Knows when they make their rounds and patrols, which ones take what shifts at what time, and what would be the most opportune moment for Orochimaru to move in with his forces, once they devise a perfect distraction to catch the Iwa shinobi off guard.

Without another moment to spare Karin urges Sasuke to finally send a summon to Orochimaru, informing him of their efforts thus far. The look Takerio sends them is scathing.

* * *

Two days into the third week Takerio pulls his team aside. 

“I can’t,” he says. “I thought I could but I can’t. I won’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Karin shouts. “We have to bring something back to Orochimaru or else all this would have been for nothing,”

She’s tired and weary, they all are, and she wants this done and over with. In her mind, this girl is not worth risking Orochimaru’s ire. And what a terrible ire it must be, to have them so pale and conflicted with the choices laid out in front of them. 

Sasuke has a choice as well. Leave the girl to Orochimaru’s tender mercies, trading in one slaver for another. Complete the mission to the fullest and lose nothing in the process. _But what of the children?_ His mind whispers traitorously. 

He’s had little contact with them but the children in question stare at the world around them with big eyes wide with fear, eyes that seem too big for their sunken faces. 

“I won’t,” Takerio proclaims, and that’s his final word on it. He looks at Karin and Sasuke with iron eyes. Waiting for their response.

“Why?” it’s a simple question Sasuke asks but one that Takerio bristles at. 

Then, the older boy snarls, “I know Orochimaru’s aim. Threaten to give them worse than this if they don’t join him. Promise them food and shelter to sweeten the deal, and then use them as lab rats to cut open whenever he pleases. He used me for this mission knowing I’d be able to overpower them because…” Takerio falters, hands falling limply to his sides. 

There’s a look in his eyes. Sasuke knows the look, it’s a hopeless one.

“Wouldn't a life with Orochimaru be better than this?” Karin reasons. “If they managed to end up here, it means that they’re weak. Orochimaru can-”

“Anything is better than living with Orochimaru!” Takerio spits. “Especially when he doesn't plan on keeping them alive for long,”

“You can’t know that!”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know, but I’m smart enough to assume the worst!”

“You don’t even know them! Why would you go so far for them!” 

“Because!” Takerio shouts and then clenches his jaw, clenches his fist, clenches his eyes closed. He opens them to look at Sasuke. “Help me help them escape.”

“We can’t!” Karin argues but Takerio ignores her. “Lord Orochimaru will-”

“I don’t care,” he retorts but his eyes never stray from Sasuke. “If there was any remnant of your clan left and you had the chance to save their lives would you? Or would you hand them over to a man like Orochimaru? To share the same twisted fate or worse?”

Karin deflates and Sasuke...Sasuke deliberates. He reigns in his emotions and decides to think rationally. This is obviously a test from Orochimaru and if it’s not it will be when they return. There’s nothing to gain from helping and a possibility that there is everything to lose. There’s no telling how Orochimaru will react to subordination or who he will make an example out of. He looks at Karin who’ll probably get the brunt of it all and Takerio who’ll probably get worse. 

Then he remembers the frail children and the even frailer girl (Hakura, Chiyoko, and Ayumu he learned). By all accounts the last of the Kano clan. If Sasuke had found another Uchiha...it’s not about that though. Or at least it can’t be.

  
  


“If I help you, we’ll release all of the prisoners,” Sasuke decides. It’d be cruel to leave anyone to Orochimaru’s tender mercies. “And... you’ll owe me in the future,” 

Takerio smiles grimly and nods. 

* * *

When Naruto woke she still saw him, impressed onto her eyes, his own as dark as the surface of a lake or the night at its blackest, blacker than the earth even. She clings desperately to the ruins in her mind, his ghost that lurks its halls. 

They are up and about before dawn breaks, and something somber has settled over Pervy Sage. 

In the Land of Fire, whenever they stopped at a town or a village, Pervy Sage tended to follow the same routine. He’d book a room at the most affordable inn or motel with decent room service. He’d check for spies and shadows, make sure they were not being followed, and once he was satisfied he would leave her on her lonesome to visit one of the many brothels the area offered.

There was no such routine in the Land of Canyon, nor the Land of Birds and Rain beneath it. Almost every town and village was barren of life, nary a soul in sight. There were signs of force, sacked shops, and homes, some even reduced to cold ash. She imagines they used to be wonders, with towns built in valleys and homes built on the side of sturdy cliffs. Now it all laid in a terrible ruin. _Stone and Earth_ , Akari had said. 

As the days rolled by the canyons eventually gave way to flat green earth with narrow trunked trees in the distance. 

“Looks like we just crossed a border,” Jiraiya grumbled. He scooped the land for any sign of human life. 

The sun was setting and it’d be nice to finally rest on an actual bed. Wherever there was human life, there was a village, or so the old man claims.

Normal human senses could not pick up any sign of activity from such a long distance, but when he went into Sage Mode the world seemed to come to life and reveal all its secrets. Or so he described it. He pointed, “That way,” and so they went. 

“What do you think we’ll find at the end of all this?” Naruto asked, equal parts anxious and eager to unveil the villain. 

The old man only shrugged. “Who knows. Nothing good though, if those desolate villages are anything to go by,”

Not long after they came upon a great hill, the trek was slow and steady, and even a lowly genin like her could detect the cluster of life teeming beneath it. “A village?” she questioned.

Jiraiya shook his head with a troubled sigh, “No, not a village,”

When she looked closer, she could see why. Wired fences that stretched yards in every direction encasing a population. The people within carried picks, rakes, and shovels that they repetitively slammed into the ground, unrooting large chunks of earth and dirt. They did not stop, did not waver, no matter how tired, weary, and wary they were. She could smell it in the air, sour and pungent. They stunk of fear. 

“Iwa,” Jiraiya muttered with a curse. “This is Iwagakure’s doing,”

Naruto grit her teeth. “We have to do something!”

The old man frowned. “Keep your voice down Naruto. There is nothing much we can do right now. The best we can do is report to the Hokage,”

“But these people need our help now!” she argued. “You claim to be one of the most powerful shinobi in the world, but what is the point of having all that power if you don’t use it to help people. People who are suffering right in front of you!”

For the first time, Jiraiya looked remorseful. “Naruto…” He reached for her, intending to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

She smacked it away before taking a few steps backward, feet easing down the hill, down where the fences and people dwelled. Without another word she spun on her heel and raced toward it, ignoring the panicked calls of her master.

(That went about as well as expected, which is to say, not at all.)

* * *

Chaos. It was the only name she could place on it.

The moment she arrived the world erupted into chaos. Shouts of panic and distress rang high, choking the air like smoke. 

She’d only ever seen men die once, in the Land of Waves, what feels so long ago now. 

Now she’s seen several. 

Kunai flies and meets their targets with deadly precision. She saw one fly and hit a man straight in the skull with a clunk. Watched his body crumble to the ground, the echoes of his shout lingering after. 

Ice erupted from the ground and crawled on the buildings, before breaking the structures beneath with a sickening crack, like bones against cement. The cold was so powerful that the air stung at her skin. 

People run this way and that with seemingly no aim or direction. 

They don’t even notice her. She’s invisible and worst of all lost. So terribly lost. 

She hadn't really had a plan, as headlong as she was. At that moment, it dawned on her what Jiraiya was trying to stave her off from. Running headfirst into a situation she’d barely spared enough time to gauge. 

The thing is, is that she usually knows who her enemy is and it’s always just the one. A foe who’s not hiding in a riot of others. Those battles had been civil in a way. Not this mindless violence. 

_I’m stupid,_ she thinks with a painful wince. _A stupid little girl._

A shinobi nearly crashes into her and it takes a little effort for her to quickly get out of dodge. Across the stretch of ground where shinobi fight and kill, turning the earth into ruin, is a dark path between two buildings, and beyond that nothing else. 

Naruto keeps to the shadows and makes her way there.

* * *

They hatch their plan the moment the sky turns dark. The Kiri girl helps, letting the prisoners, the ones brave enough to go through with it, in on the plan. And Orochimaru’s forces come just in time (though Orochimaru himself isn’t with them). A two-way diversion, one from the forces outside and the captive ones within. Sasuke, Takerio, and Karin shed themselves of their illusion and catch the Iwa shinobi by surprise. 

Though the men that were sent weren't anything to sneeze. 

Still, Karin proves that she too is a strong ally. With her Mind’s Eye of Kagura, they’re able to keep track of the dogs on their tail, and Sasuke lays a multitude of genjutsu traps in hopes the Iwa nin walk straight into his flames. Then there is Takerio, with his incredible ice, springing up towers of it with the weave of his fingers.

“What are we going to tell Orochimaru when we return?” Karin inquires, when they finally reach the edge of the camp and Takerio begins to unchain the young woman and children. The other prisoners began to quickly filter out of the opening Sasuke made in the fence, quick to get away from the mayhem unfolding behind them.

“That I killed all the prisoners and burned every single body to ash. They proved to be a liability and weren't worth the trouble,” Sasuke answers flatly. He can only imagine the snake sannins reaction, and can practically hear Kabuto’s. 

There is no doubt in his mind that no matter how favored he is he’s going to be in hot water. Is going to be punished somehow. The thought doesn't really faze him as much as it likely should. Perhaps he will feel differently when the punishment is dished out.

“But-”

“I’m willing to face the consequences, as long as Takerio here is willing to pay the debt. When the time comes.”

Takerio stares at him long and hard. He takes a kunai and runs the edge across the skin of his palm until it bleeds. Then he forms his hand into a solid fist and squeezes the blood into the earth. Sasuke isn't familiar with the culture and customs from Kiri but he knows that this means something. 

“I am,”

“Good.”

They watch as the last of the Kano clan, besides Takerio himself, flee into the night and the grasslands toward Kusa. If they were smart they’d go even further, to the Land of Fire where Konoha dwells (along with the only person, another sannin, strong enough to face Orochimaru if he comes near), and even further still. If Orochimaru wants something he finds a way to attain it. 

Sasuke catches a flash of orange at the edge of his vision and the ambiance that has clung to him swells in a cacophony of vibrations. A loud chiming, the sound bells make. 

“Come on,” Takerio says, oblivious to Sasuke’s distress. “Let’s get back to the battle,”

Sasuke nods, the picture of calm, but the movement is practiced and false. His heart rate begins to climb, the ambiance does not cease. Just swells and swells like an orchestra. And like a puppet on a string, his feet move for him, guiding him to where he saw that bright blur of motion. 

He does not want it to be true, he tells himself, and yet his chest blooms with traitorous hope, wrapping around his heart like weeds, and pulls. The feeling is akin to becoming overly conscious of your own breathing and forgetting how to do so.

He goes to the alleyway, if it can be called that, and sees an Oro nin poised to attack someone. He does not see who that someone is, though in his heart of hearts he knows. So his hand flies through the right-hand signs - air gathering in his throat and heat in his bosom - before his breath blows into them. The flames engulf, kissing the walls and the man that stands in his line of sight. It’s brilliant and hot but fleeting. Therefor a moment and gone in the next. When the smoke clears-

His heart stutters, the ambiance is deafening.

Because when the smoke clears he sees _her_ , sun and gold, face wide open in shock.

Something is happening here, the echoes of a moment that seeks to repeat itself once again. Though stronger this time, and with purpose, in lieu of blind will and happenstance. It had happened once, on the training field within Konoha, between two hot-blooded individuals, and again at the Valley of the End, with the birth of that all-encompassing power, the result of their fatal collision that still lingered beneath his skin and in his mind even now. The ambiance that's taken on a life of its own and grows ever stronger.

It’s like the flip of a switch, the removal of a veil, the fall of a curtain. Revealing something raw and bare. The bond, their bond. But he’d never thought it could be like this. So monstrous and consuming, like the fire he’d howled from his mouth just seconds ago. 

They’re like two pieces of a split atom floating in tandem, teeming with life and energy and powerful destructive force that bounces between them, rattling their bones. They implode and the world feels it.

Sasuke faints and he feels her ( _he feels her_ ) faint too. 


	6. anything that can go wrong will go wrong; so says murphy's law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s dread uncoiling in her belly. The primal instinct to hate and fear the things she simply does not understand. He’s just trying to scare me, but the lie would not hold in the face of the truth. She and Sasuke did something bad, so bad that even the demon fox was scared.

It’s the strangest thing when the screams and shouts immediately cease, and a collective thud resounds, bodies dropping like flies to double over in pain.

Jiraiya felt the pain keenly. Like a hot poker to his bare skull or a needle puncturing the delicate meat of his brain. His body trembled ever so slightly, but it was the kind of quakes that came and lingered forever.

The air was laden with chakra, thick and crisp and damp on his skin. He could taste it, earthy and brittle, like the aftermath of a battle. Though no battle could have been so great as to cause this disturbance. The wind twisted and moaned like a wounded animal and the earth felt tender to the touch, breaking apart with each step. It heaved even, as one does when they whimper in pain. 

The cause of this schism between nature and men laid within the wired fences. Where blood stained the walls and smoke choked the air. Naruto was in there. At the heart of it most likely.

Jiraiya’s sure he’s going to kill her, he thinks as his stomach lurches with a feeling he has not felt since he was a young man, new to war and death with a platoon of soldiers under his leadership. Every decision he’d made had either cost a life or saved one.

He’s going to kill her, but not before getting her the hell out of there. 

* * *

He walks over the sunken lumps that wither and shake like autumn leaves on a branch. They do not even see him or care to. Instead, they clutch their heads and when he dully feels for their chakra, he notes that it is not nearly as strong as the shock wave that knocked into them.

He wagers that it is because of his strong life force that he does not also lay on the ground cringing in agony. 

Jiraiya senses her chakra, warm and golden though dimmed. And even then it is still impossibly bright. The more ground he walks the stronger the schism becomes, right along with the throb in his head that has now sharpened to a fine blade. 

The air becomes denser and he finds that it is harder to breathe, that his limbs have become sluggish and ten times heavier. It is then that he sees her, flat on her back, though she could have easily been mistaken for a fat orange cat taking a small nap. When he chuckles it becomes that much harder to regulate his breathing patterns. His body isn’t what it used to be.

He takes in her appearance. The peaceful look on her face that has softened her features, the blonde hair twisted in two braids how that refugee girl taught her, and the wade of orange she’s gradually starting to outgrow. It’s been more than six months since the beginning of their journey and yet he still doesn't feel cut out for this.

Protect her and teach her, he’d promised Tsunade, so how in the hell did they end up here?

Jiraiya gently cradles her head and scoops up her legs.

The ashes fall on her skin, the cold ground, and a few feet away from them...the boy, who is also unconscious. Slumbering in near-identical tranquility. 

The older man has half a mind to snatch him up, seal him away and return him to Konoha. A decision the blonde brat might be agreeable to, for the first time in a while. 

Not a second after the thought crosses his mind two kids drop in front of the Uchiha. They look at Jiraiya, eyes glazed over with malice. He could hand their asses to them ten times over but the fact that, despite the sheen of sweat that betrays mental stress and pain, they’re conscious and on their feet just the same as _him_ , is pretty damn impressive. Jiraiya begrudgingly admits that their life forces are strong for some teens. 

And the defensive stance they take up... _Orochimaru_ , the name comes to him and stays. 

Even the men crumbling on the ground have the touch of Orochimaru, the same state of dress, the aura, the power. It makes sense then, why the Uchiha boy is here and why Iwa’s labor camp lies in ruin. But Jiraiya hardly doubts his old teammate did it out of the kindness of his heart. This chaos is nothing short of ambition. 

He looks down at the girl in his arms, the one he’d been charged with to protect two times over, and decides a confrontation simply isn’t worth it. He needs to get her out of here before the rest of Orochimaru (and Iwa’s) soldiers break free of their agony and come to their senses.

Jiraiya nods at the hostile teens with a sardonic grin before mustering up enough mental strength to shunshin away.

* * *

Naruto feels everything and nothing all at once.

There are no words to describe the feeling of being entirely consumed by a force so foreign and powerful. It’s like a power vacuum, and the harder the struggle the deeper the fall.

Everything that she was, the sun and the stars and the dust, the flesh that struggled to hold it all together, slammed into another being. And she knew, she knew who it was the moment they joined, the moment everything in her began to orbit around him. 

(Had she ever understood something so naturally? Ever accepted something so completely without a yoke around her neck?)

The sight was maddening, could make eyes melt from the sockets and minds lose sanity, struggling to comprehend, to make sense of the chaos unfolding in front of their eyes. 

And then just as quickly as they joined, they split, like the split of an atom and she could feel her mind implode with great fission in her soul, an incredible-

“What have you done girl?” a voice growls. 

The voice is a hand that drags her away from this new-founded enlightenment and untangles her from the soft threads of lightning and moonglow and the scent of storm clouds that are wholly Sasuke. Pulls her back to the surface of her mind, caged and cluttered with thick bars, brick walls, and what she suspects is sewage water that reaches her ankles. The whiplash is painful.

She glares at the Kyuubi, matching his resentment with equal intensity. 

“I don’t know!” she shouts defensively. She really doesn’t know. “And what’s it to you anyway huh?”

The great demon fox extends its angry maw and growls. It’s a violent wind that causes turbulence in the water and makes her footing unsteady. “Because of your constant stupidity things that have long been asleep are now awake, things far worse than me,”

“What can be worse than you?” Naruto scoffs and folds her arms but it is an act. 

Just as she feels the strength of his anger she feels the strength of his fear. What could make the great Kyuubi no Kitsune feel fear?

“You humans think you know everything,” he continues, her last comment unheard. Something dark, dare she say haunted, unfurls in his eyes.“Think you know so much of the world and its ways when you know _nothing!_ Your little bond with the Uchiha, us beasts you humans have sealed away and the jutsu you’ve created...it’s little more than a pebble on a mountain. Humans live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of an infinite black sea which knows no bounds,”

Naruto grits her teeth, “What the hell are you talking about?”

The fox blinks its bloodshot eyes closed. “You’ll see,”

There’s dread uncoiling in her belly. The primal instinct to hate and fear the things she simply does not understand. _He’s just trying to scare me_ , but the lie would not hold in the face of the truth. She and Sasuke did something bad, so bad that even the demon fox was scared. 

_You’ll see. You’ll all see._

It was the last thing she heard from him before she woke up.

* * *

It is the break of dawn, she wagers just shy of seven in the morning. They’ve long since fled from the labor camp (probably while she was sleeping) and now dwelled on the border of the Land of Fire. Jiraiya has something cooking in a beat-up pot over a campfire and their tents and sleeping bags are rolled up and tucked away in a storage scroll.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourself,” Pervy Sage chastised. “What the hell did you think you were going to accomplish running into danger like that?!”

It’s been days and yet the mistakes are still fresh. Now that she’s awake the old man can address them.

Naruto bit her lip and looked down at her palms, at the faint outline on her right palm. She thinks it’s staying for good this time.

Naruto shrugs, “I don’t know okay. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

Jiraiya gives her a hard look, she’s never seen him so serious. He sighs and unfolds his arms. “Good. Because next time I might not be there to get you out of the trap you put yourself in.”

_There won’t be the next time,_ she promises herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I paraphrased a quote by H.P. Lovecraft. Should be easy to catch.
> 
> 12/30/2020 Edit: I changed the chapter name. This one seemed more fitting.


	7. so he locks these feelings away in the furnace of his heart; and hopes that they may burn there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The darkness of his room (his prison in all but name) is all he has. His only respite, his solace, his sanity, his peace of mind. The darkness is all he has, the darkness, and his thoughts. And those are the most dangerous of all.

Waking up is like rising to the surface after wallowing in the deep, the air stabbing at your skin with lethal precision, and the first drawing of breath is both the kiss of life and death. It’s too much for the lungs, they might collapse beneath the chase for relief. 

Sasuke’s hand finds his own throat. Breathe. In and out. _In and out_ , he’d taught himself this when he was eight. When the wounds were fresh and nightmares new. 

He takes in his surroundings. Cold floors, white sheets, and fluorescent lights. He’s back at the hideout but he doesn’t remember how he got there.

_Karin and Takerio brought me back_ , he inferred. It was the only logical conclusion. 

Every inch of his skin feels prickly, like static made flesh, though it’s not just him. The world feels impossibly alive. He’d do anything to tune it out. So he allows his body to relax into the sheets of his bed and rest.

* * *

When he wakes, Orochimaru is there. They go through the motions of poking and prodding at Sasuke’s body, trying to find any hint of fissure or an internal wound that can lead to fainting or severe headaches. According to the sannin, everyone had been laid out flat after the battle and once everyone came to, even the enemy opted out of continuing.

Orochimaru rests a cold pale hand on his forehead, and a mock of sympathy plays on his face. “Oh, sweet Sasuke what have you gotten yourself into this time?”

Sasuke slaps his hand away. The man immediately drops his paternal disposition with a simple shrug. Well, there’s nothing to be done about that, he seemed to say.

“What happens with the disputed land and the Land of Canyon? I hardly doubt Iwagakure will take kindly to you defiling their labor camp,” Sasuke states matter of factly, and what might pass for surprise flashes in Orochimaru’s eyes, there for a moment and gone in the next.

“Labor _camps_ , you mean. The one you were situated at was one of many,” The man smiles, “I’ve made correspondence with the Tsuchikage and Earth Daimyo and we’ve reached an accord. Best to not garner any unwanted attention from Konohagakure and their allies. We’ll split the land. Otogakure will claim the northern province and Iwagakure will take the southern. I can be a civil man when I want to be,”

Sasuke frowns, “But you killed their men. You made a mockery of them. And they tried to make a mockery of you by laying claim to land you’d already had a stake on. Why would either side be amiable to any sort of agreement?”

Orochimaru tuts, “Oh, Sasuke. Men can be savage and civil. And that business at the labor camp was little more than a drop of blood in comparison to the sea of it that has been spilled in the last two decades alone. In times of peace, it is not uncommon for villages to start disputes at the edge of a blade and end it at the negotiating table. It’s the way of our world, of our society,

“Burning people alive until their bodies turn to ash, though?” he states definitively, as he draws blood from Sasuke’s arm. The liquid that fills the vacuum tube is black and Sasuke watches with a sort of detachment. “I could have used those bodies. What a lack of consideration for my work. And an interesting lack of empathy on your part, though I suppose with the potential of your bloodline you have it in you, as the saying goes,” 

There was a racket filled with tube additives, ranging from glucose, sodium citrate, and heparin. These types of tubes were used for testing the subject of diseases. Sasuke was sure he had none, sure that whatever ailed him went beyond the physical. 

“And madness and greatness go hand in hand for an Uchiha,” Orochimaru continued, placing the tubes into an icebox. Later, they would be properly refrigerated. “Though this indiscretion cannot go unpunished. Rules must be followed and examples made, even of you, I’m afraid,” the snake sannin mocked pity, tilting his head just so, always a consummate actor. 

Orochimaru sticks him with a syringe-like he always does, filled with an ambiguous liquid like it always is, and it runs its course through his bloodstream until hours later he’s waking up in a pool of sweat, dry retching onto the floor, every muscle in his body cramping and writhing in agony.

This is a different kind of cruelty. Cruelty meant to last long after the blow has been dealt. A planned out pain for all to witness, so that they may snicker in mockery or cringe in remembrance of similar punishment. 

It only lasts eight hours, the eight hours it takes to fully rest before he’s made to train from dawn till dusk. A weaker man would have given up, would have repented and wept and folded. Sasuke continues on, moves through the pain like he’s been taught to.

He hates the glimmer of approval that lights those yellow eyes.

* * *

A day and a night pass before he realizes that Karin and Takerio are gone. To where? He does not know. In fact, it is best to not ponder, lest his imagination runs away with him, lest he starts to dread and regret, lest he starts to care. 

The days that follow are his darkest and coldest. 

With no distractions, there is nothing but focus and undisturbed determination. 

No matter how strong he thinks he is he knows he can become stronger, and in that knowledge, there is no limit to how far he can push himself. Orochimaru is understandably pleased. 

A strong vessel is a vessel worth attaining, notwithstanding his doujutsu that already makes him a prize. But this makes him feel nothing, and this return to numbness is like being dipped in the cold black sea, skin turning blue with death and frostbite. 

He’d felt more alive running through the colorful rice fields that gave way to jungles and forest, and he had felt more alive listening to the silent bickering between Takerio and Karin. Such a human thing, to bicker. To laugh and shout and tease and cry. He spends his days absorbing information and taking in facts, but what is a page filled with words compared to the feeling of touching grass? But he’s not supposed to yearn for these things, not if he ever hopes of killing Itachi. To be human is to be weak and in that knowledge, he somewhat understands Orochimaru’s morbid infatuation with immortality, despite the fallacies surrounding the philosophy of it, because nothing immortal could ever be human.

In Oto, everyone looks at him like he’s meat. Their touches are cold and clammy when they stick him with needles filled with questionable liquids, and it makes his skin crawl. They all want something from him, something he is not willing to give but they are willing to take if ever given the chance. He is not a mind or a soul or a human, just a body.

For Orochimaru, it is something to possess. For others it is something to claim, desire, to have what has not been touched, and may never well be.

Sasuke knows what he looks like. He’s always been aware of his features if not fixated on them. He’s a classical beauty ripped right out of the poems. The ancient ones his mother kept, the ones he’d left behind. 

A _Bishōnen_ , the poems would have called him. A boy of androgynous beauty. The ivory of his skin (not porcelain. Porcelain would imply he was made of weaker flesh) contrasting with his depthful eyes as dark as midnight, framed by inky black hair, thick and fine. His body only grows taller, leaner, stronger. And they all salivate like dogs. There is no hiding from their wanting eyes, no endless forest with topless trees, no nook and cranny they haven't already nestled in. 

The darkness of his room (his prison in all but name) is all he has. His only respite, his solace, his sanity, his peace of mind. The darkness is all he has, the darkness, and his thoughts. And those are the most dangerous of all.

He knows he is stronger than he was yesterday but it is never enough. In his mind, That Man is always twice as strong, that larger than life figure that he could never measure up to.

Then there are the dreams. The nightmares are already bad as is but the dreams are even crueler. Because when he dreams he dreams of _her_ (he dare not think her name). Dreams of her strange purity and naivete and kindness, in the light, always in the light. In those dreams, he actually feels like a person, like he actually exists, and is not a lifeless machine driving himself into the dirt. In those dreams he feels warm, so warm, and then too awake to a cold damp cavern beneath the earth, surrounded by ever-watchful eyes and cold prodding hands? That is the cruelest thing of all. For his own mind to work against him like that, to tease him.

He feels her absence how one might feel the absence of the sun, after a lifetime of bathing beneath its light. He does not want to think about her but like That Man, she has burrowed her way in, relentless in her pursuit to gain his attention. Teasing him, challenging him, chasing him. To think that her tactics were that effective, to the point where even when he’s thousands of miles away, out sight if not out of mind she’s still on his. 

Sasuke refuses to admit it to himself but he misses her. He doesn't miss Konoha or Team Seven, but he misses her. There’s no use in dwelling, no use of yearning and longing for something he knows he’ll never have if he ever had it to begin with. These feelings are little more than weaknesses, distractions used to make his resolve waver. As though he’d taken a piece of her with him that night, the piece that tries to ironically enough act as the voice of reason. 

He throws himself headfirst into his training and the missions Orochimaru sends him out on, completing each task with lethal precision, and wills the thoughts of blonde hair and blue eyes away.

When it comes down to it he simply does not want to remember what happened that night. It’s too fantastical to think about. Though the faint tickle of something abnormal resting beneath the palm of his left hand is hard to ignore. 

Her name is a hum under his skin, living as though it belongs there. _My twin flame_ , he wants to scoff at the thought because it is a thought worth scoffing at. Since when did he start believing in fairytales? But he’d felt her, he swears he did. He’d felt the beating of her heart, felt the air leave her lungs. More than that, he’d felt the very thoughts that crossed her mind and the bare nakedness of her emotions in their entirety. The moment still haunts him, to be so viscerally connected to another being when he’d worked so hard to detach himself from her, _specifically_. 

And then, because the odds are against him, he _again_ starts to feel her emotions like a fresh wound. Each day is a new bruise on his skin writ in joy, sadness, anger. Such human things. Thousands of miles away, out of sight but not out of mind.

So he locks these feelings away in the furnace of his heart and hopes that they may burn there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always been obsessed with Naruto and Sasuke's seal/soul marks and it's something that I wish would have been fleshed out more and introduced early. So that's what I'm doing, fleshing it out and introducing it early. I'll be doing a lot of that actually in every regard and I hope you enjoy it!


	8. whenever things go wrong; whenever life is painful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto tries to find a family in anyone who shows her a modicum of attention, only for it to blow up in her face. You’d think she’d learn by now to give up on people who’ve given up a long time ago, but there’s always that flicker of hope that things might be different.

A single decrypted message from Tsunade. The mission will be extended by two years. _We’re about to land in a doozy_. A doozy, a code name they’d opted to use as a cryptonym for war when the third one rolled around. 

Jiraiya reads it once, then twice. Jiraiya then proceeds to get drunk at the brothels within the nondescript farming village they’ve stopped in. Naruto is seemingly asleep at the motel he left her in and the night is young.

* * *

The motel they’re staying in is a cheap one in comparison to the almost dream-like traditional ryokan not far from it. Two separate rooms, each with paper-thin sheets and jaunty air conditioners. Naruto spends most of the afternoons staring up at the ceiling and waiting for Jiraiya’s return, an exercise in futility at best. For days now he’s been lingering at the brothels and bars. He only ever returns to check on her before leaving again.

Five years, Jiraiya said. Half a decade away from home.

She has five years to become strong. And in three of those five years, she has to be strong enough to reach Sasuke before it’s too late. She has no choice and Naruto likes to think she works well under pressure, (Sasuke once told her that diamonds are made under pressure), and the pressure makes her more serious.

If only Pervy Sage would be more serious. She’d kill for him to be as enthusiastic about her training as he is about his ‘research’.

She likes to think she understands. The man smells of sadness and regret, and sometimes when he looks at her it's as though he’s not really seeing her but someone else. It makes her feel hollow. 

Though it does make her wonder if maybe he knew her parents. The Third Hokage only ever talked about them once and never talked about them again. Something along the lines of them being heroes who sacrificed their lives for the village.

(And the implications of that now, that they died the night she was born, that she killed them, or better yet that the fox sealed in her killed them, is jarring). 

No name, no pictures to place a face to the names, not even an offhand story. He'd even told her to stop asking about them because it wouldn't bring back the dead. The Third had been tightlipped about her parentage just as he’d been tightlipped about why the entire village hated her.

It really, really makes her wonder. She’s tempted to ask Jiraiya about it but keeps her mouth shut in fear he’ll run off and abandon the little training he gives her. And that really pisses her off. 

She’s tired of people running away from her, tired of being left in the dark about her own life. This feels like a punishment of some sort, like the ordeal at the labor camp was the last straw and he was done with her. 

_Eventually, he will stop coming back,_ she thought forlornly, _he’ll forget that I’m here and I’ll be all alone._

In moments like these, she likes to think about Sasuke instead.

Naruto constantly reaches out to him in the most unlikely of ways. And it terrifies her. To know that she's so connected with someone and that that connection might reap consequences too large to bear. A part of her hope's she's going mad but…

This feeling cannot be imagined. Not when she feels him so keenly almost all the time. Even when she tries to suppress the bulk of it, conceal the sensations that run along her skin and the emotions that do not feel like her own.

How could a bond be so profoundly woven, tied with knots so thick, the size of a grown man’s fist? So intricately crafted with threads vast and strong that they seemed unbreakable. 

At that moment, amidst the chaos and death, from the point she went dead still to the second she collapsed to the ground, her body did not feel like her own, merely a vessel for all those thoughts and feelings and most importantly Sasuke. 

The sensation was maddening, still is, so she exercises some form of control, the control she often lacks, and forces herself to step away from their strange bond. 

When she does she’s left with her loneliness and the vaguest sense of abandonment. 

It’s only a matter of time before she finally snaps.

“You know, if you don’t want to train me you can take me back to Konoha!” The look on Jiraiya’s face would be comical if she wasn’t so pissed off. “You're just like Kakashi-sensei but worse. At least he had another student that he was actually paying attention to but all you care about is your stupid research!”

He moves his already agape mouth to defend himself but she cuts him off. “No! I’m tired of your dumb excuses, Pervy Sage! This training is important to me! I need to be strong and you know why I need to be strong, my life depends on it, but all you do is run off to drink and spy on helpless girls! I know I’m not smart like Sakura or talented like Sasuke, but I can be if you’d just teach me!”

And then, with watery eyes, she stomps back to her room, leaving behind a shell shocked sage and an amused crowd of nosy people lingering in the halls. 

She’s surprised when he materializes in her room twenty minutes later, with a look of exasperation. He sweats at the glare she shoots him before massaging his temple as if _she’s_ the one who’s causing the headaches! 

Unbelievable. 

“I’m not trying to ignore you kid,”

“It sure as hell seems like it,” she mumbles, folding her arms with a pout. 

“Kami, just as stubborn as your mother…” he whispers this, and any lesser person would have missed it but she’s always had good hearing.

“My what?!” she jumps up and points at him while he winces at his little slip-up. 

“You weren't supposed to hear that,” he rubs the back of his head sheepishly, face flushed from liquor. “Look, forget about it. First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll start your training. _Really_ start your training. Hope you're ready kid, cause it won't be easy.”

“Hah! Naruto Uzumaki is always ready!” she beams, hopping in excitement. But then she pauses. Pervy Sage knew her mother, enough to know that her mother had been just as stubborn as her.

He senses the question before it even has a chance to form. _Can you tell me about my mother?_ “No, I said forget about it, kid.” the way he just dismisses it makes her blood boil.

As if she couldn't be trusted with her _own_ secrets. People know more about her than she knows about herself and the thought's a little disconcerting. 

She swallows her rage, knowing it's a battle she can’t win but bides her time. She’ll press him for answers later. 

Jiraiya holds true to his promise and starts to really train her. 

They go out to an open field, surrounded by forest, on the outskirts of a small no named village in Tea Country, where they work on her chakra control. She blanches at this at first but he reasons that she’ll need all the control she can get to perform the advanced jutsu he plans to teach her in the future. And the task itself isn't all too bad.

He explains to her that the Shadow Clone Jutsu has more perks than overpowered quantity. Her clones can also process information and transfer it to her once they dispel, and can narrow down a year's worth of training to a month. 

In theory, this is amazing, but in practice, it's overwhelming. She makes up to three thousand clones, all of which practice their water walking, tree walking, and leaf exercises. By the end of the day, she’s sluggish and bone-weary, her clothes are barely hanging on her body by a thread, and her mind is more than drained. Pervy Sage says she’ll get used to it but she doesn't think she’ll ever get used to the feeling of three thousand minds compressing into one. 

This goes on for weeks until they're back on the road again. They never stay in one place for more than a few weeks, a month at the most. Always on the move, always in a haste. She tries to take everything in as much as she can but more often than not the days are a blur.

Sometimes Jiraiya will sneak off and then come back with scrolls filled with intel. He reads it, processes the information, before burning it with a lighter, leaving no trace of it behind for the shadows that may be lurking. Whenever he does the look on his face is a troubled one. 

It fills Naruto with a sense of foreboding, a great unease. She’s so in the dark about everything but she can’t help but feel like her training mission was extended because of her.

_You’ll see_ , the demon fox had promised. He’d stated it like a fact. The sky is blue, water is wet and you’ll all see _._

* * *

They stop on the side of the road once the sun begins to set. It’s best to set up their little two-man camp before it's too dark to see anything, and they probably won't see another town for a couple of days. Just because the Akatsuki have become stagnant in their pursuit of the Kyuubi doesn't mean they’ve stopped their search entirely. No doubt they’ll be trying to locate her and keep tabs on her whereabouts if they haven't already. More likely than not, they probably know she’s no longer in Konoha and that she’s left with Pervy Sage, a tall man with long silver hair, tan skin, and red markings. He isn't exactly the type of person you miss in a crowd. She wouldn't be surprised if they were spotted by the organization again.

_It happened once,_ she thinks, remembering her encounter with Sasuke’s brother. _And it can happen again._ She levels the unsuspecting man with a glare, remembering how that particular situation had gone down, how it had pushed Sasuke further into darkness. She wonders how different it would have turned out had Pervy Sage _actually_ been there to protect her. He could have dealt with Itachi before Sasuke even showed up, and her friend would have left the encounter unscathed. Sasuke wouldn't have been pushed over the edge, wouldn't have felt the need to leave everything behind.

“Hey, what are you giving me that look for, brat?” he says with a laugh, throwing back a shot of sake. 

Their small fire crackles as the wood splinters, emphasizing her response or lack thereof. She thinks about how he refused to talk about her mother when he’d been the one to bring her up and grits her teeth, turning her glare toward the flames. The warm mood has soured completely. 

“Okay, really. What is it this time?”

“It’s not like you’ll actually answer me if I ask, so what’s the point,” she grumbles. Her mood has been nothing but gloomy lately and she hates it. 

Part of her knows it's equal parts hormones, the Kyuubi messing with her emotions, and Sasuke. But it’s more than that.

She misses the friends she’d made, misses going to Ichiraku’s for warm bowls of ramen, and the hospitality she rarely encountered at establishments within Konoha. She misses Konohamaru following her around and misses bugging Granny Tsunade and Iruka-sensei. She even misses her brief moments with Kakashi-sensei and Sakura. He’d tried to make them feel better about Sasuke leaving by draining his wallet at food stands after C-rank missions. 

And she had to leave all of that behind, needed to if she wanted to become stronger. But the feelings of loneliness never abated, and sometimes her heart hurt so much she couldn't even sleep. Leaving had started to feel pointless after a while, almost a year worth of traveling and she’d felt like she learned next to nothing. It took her nearly having a breakdown in the middle of an inn hallway to get him to pay attention to her. 

Naruto tries to find a family in anyone who shows her a modicum of attention, only for it to blow up in her face. You’d think she’d learn by now to give up on people who’ve given up a long time ago, but there’s always that flicker of hope that things might be different. Because even Pervy Sage has his moments, when he feels like the family she never had, and being the orphan that she is, she desperately clings to those moments. 

Even now, when the thought of him is annoying her. 

“Try me, brat.” he gives her an earnest, encouraging smile, cheeks flushed from the liquor. The hope in her chest flares.

“Can you please tell me about my mom? I know you knew her-”

“No.” 

Her mood drops exponentially and the flicker of hope wanes. 

“Why. Not.” she bites out, her clenched fist trembling in piqued rage. 

“I’m sorry, I just can’t-” he sounds so mournful, his face closed off, even in his drunkenness. 

“Why?” she presses. The least he can give her is that. But he doesn't, just sits there and stares at her like she’s in the wrong, like she’s crazy.

“ _Why?!”_

“Because I can’t Naruto!,” he shouts and the clearing they’re sitting in goes still. “Why do you have to be such a damn brat?!”

Her whole body begins to tremble, gut-churning with emotion, blood rushing with adrenaline. Jiraiya has never yelled at her like that before, and the way he’s looking at her reminds her of how the villagers used to look at her. With anger, sorrow, and the faintest hint of loss buried deep inside. And they usually think it’s her fault. Does he feel the same way? Does he see a ghost when he looks at her?

“Something bad happened didn't it?” she hates when she cries, especially when she’s angry. She tries to hold it in but it's too much. “That’s why isn't it? Why is everything about my life terrible and sad? And why won’t anyone tell me anything about my own life? It’s unfair!”

Her mentor’s face softens, guilty but resolved. “It’s for your own good.”

“That’s what the Third Hokage used to say, and in the end, it wasn't for my own good. In the end, the secret was used against me and someone I care about got hurt. Had I known from the start...things would have been so much easier had I known from the start, why everyone hated me,” She wouldn't have learned to hate _everything_ about herself, only a small part.

“Maybe not. Maybe it would have made it worse,”

“You don’t know that!” she shouts, and something is shifting inside of her. Waiting to be unleashed. She always feels too much and too deeply. Her happiness is just as fierce and passionate as her rage. “I want to know! I want to know! You don’t have the right to keep things about my own life away from me! And if you don’t I’ll- _I’ll run away!_ ” 

Jiraiya’s face hardens into something serious and impassive. “Like the little Uchiha brat? Are you sure this temper tantrum isn't about him, Naruto?”

Naruto clenches her jaw. "This isn't about him and you know it! I have every right to ask about my parents!"

"With the way you're acting, maybe you don't deserve to know," He passed the claim off so cavalier. 

_You don't deserve to know._

The blow struck hard. Even he had to know how low that was. 

_You don't deserve to know._

Was she really so undeserving in his eyes? _Yes, of course,_ her mind supplied. 

Even at the beginning, it had been a chore for him to train her, she’d had to lure him in, had to use his pervertedness as a weakness against him. Even the illusion of a naked body was more favorable than the person beneath. 

Everyone thought she was so _undeserving._ Because she wasn't smart enough, talented enough, mature enough. Or because of her heritage, the one she’s been denied her entire life, or because of the creature sealed in her, which she had no choice in. 

She just wasn't good enough, not even for her teacher.

_You don't deserve to know._

_And he doesn't deserve his esophagus,_ a dark voice rumbled.

It all happened so fast.

She launched at him with claws thick and sharp ( _when had that happened?_ ), feet not so much as lifting but gliding, and the feel of acidic chakra licking at her skin. 

His eyes widen for a fraction of a second before he focuses his attention on the angry child in possession of an even angrier demon who’s all too eager to play on her emotions in hopes of being released.

He catches her clawed fingers before they scratch out his eyes but it’s a near thing. 

“Naruto! Calm yourself!” his command only enrages her further and he has to resort to placing a seal on her that knocks her unconscious instantly. 

* * *

She comes to hours later, snugly tucked into her sleeping bag within her tent. The last vestiges of darkness are beginning to give way to bright orange dawn and the birds rise with the coming morning.

Immediately she feels guilty. She hadn’t meant to get _that_ angry. 

_Yes, you did,_ the dark voice rumbles again. _And really, were you wrong?_

Her throat constricts with pain when she recalls the events from the night prior. Jiraiya had yelled at her, really _yelled_ at her. He’d been so upset, and the way he looked at her... It filled her with such a dreadful feeling. She wouldn't blame him if he took her up on her offer and dropped her back off at Konoha. Fives years of resentment and tip-toeing around the elephant in the room. Who would want to live like that?

She’s always ruining things. 

“Hey kid, are you awake?” Jiraiya calls out. 

She stiffens, even though his voice is gentle, before getting up to crawl out. 

She sits across from him, her eyes never leaving the newly sparked campfire heating a pot of boiling water. Probably for tea and oatmeal. When the heat starts to sting at her eyes she focuses on the cuffs of her jacket. The Kyuubi’s chakra ate at the edges of it.

The old man sighs, “Listen...I know I haven’t been the best master and I understand if you want to go back to Konoha…” he pauses to gauge her reaction, startled upon seeing her crestfallen expression. Hurriedly he adds, “But I don’t want you to, kid.

“There are still some things I gotta teach you. Things...your _mother_ would have wanted you to learn. I can’t tell you everything right now but...I promise when you're older I will. You’ll be ready when I do.”

The girl visibly brightens, and with a leap of faith (and a little hesitation and fear of rejection and-) launches herself at him, this time with happiness. He sputters at first, not used to little children hugging him, but slowly succumbs to her will and hugs her back. 

He hugged her back. She hasn't hugged anyone in months, not since Iruka-sensei said his goodbyes to her. 

She doesn't try to hold in her tears this time. Naruto hates him sometimes, but she'd be a liar if she said she wasn't beginning to see this man as family, and that despite all his (perverted) faults and the secrets he keeps, she wouldn't have him any other way. 

"I'm sorry…"

"I know, kid. I'm sorry too."

* * *

The blade comes easy to him. 

To properly wield it one must maintain elegance and grace; something that Sasuke has always had in spades. He sets his personal woes aside, focusing on his footwork and agility, mixing in his taijutsu with his kenjutsu, and has half a mind to incorporate the chidori to add to its lethality. He practices on top of the water and on sharp cliff-sides. One misstep and he'll be dead before he gets his revenge. 

The soles of his feet bruise and bleed but he doesn't halt until he masters the beginner's form, and then moves onto the more advanced forms. He taps into his life force, let's it flow through him, lets it crackle at his bones until it imprints every move into the memory of his muscles. Until it isn't a matter of just remembering but the basic instinct to move his body this way and that. Until there is no other option but to move this way or that. 

Lethal and fast, the shine of his chokutō becomes little more than silvery bolts of lightning striking at his opponents before they can so much as blink. He could cut the wings off a fly if he wanted to. In fact, he has just to prove it. 

Orochimaru always makes sure to teach him enough, but never too much. The man needs Sasuke to need him. He hasn't even claimed the Uchiha's body yet but he already acts like a ventriloquist. 

Sasuke makes sure to rid the man of the notion that he's a puppet to be controlled or a dog that comes when he whistles. He's his own person, not a pet, and if he wants to he can leave, he will leave. When the time is right. The snake is a dead man, he just doesn't know it yet. 

Because every man has a code, even Sasuke. Hunting missing-nin and claiming bounties is one thing, if Sasuke didn't do it someone else would. But manipulating the innocent, the vulnerable, with lies and deceit, locking them away, torturing them, experimenting on them, refusing to let them leave knowing that they're too terrified to try? It's disgraceful, it's disgusting, and beneath him. Every time he does nothing about it, something inside of him dies. The fact he has to learn from under this man is vexing enough. 

He rejects the missions to outright steal children from lonely towns, disgraced nomadic clans, and small hidden villages, knowing no one will come after them how people came after Sasuke... 

But Sasuke is different. He's an avenger, not a naive child. He knows who Orochimaru is and is under no illusion that the man has his best interest at heart unless it pertains to the future inhabitation of his chosen vessel. And he's not afraid of him either. He'll get what he needs and then leave just as he always planned to, leaving a cold pale corpse behind him.

Then he'll rid the world of Itachi, run the man through with his blade and his lightning, wound bleeding and burning until it cicatrizes. The dream is so real, he smells it, iron and ozone; smells that have become analogous to him, clinging to his skin like perfume. Sasuke will triumph and Itachi will fall and the world will be set to rights. The tyranny of evil men defeated. 

He doesn't know what comes after that, doesn't really care...but in the abyss of his blackened heart, he thinks about returning to Konoha to face the glory or the persecution his deeds will have brought him. 

_Though not before seeing her._ A traitorous thought whispers. _Just once._

He couldn't even begin to think that far in the future when Itachi's body has yet to rot beneath the sun, little more than a feast for crows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the way I've been sitting on like 4 or five chapters lmao I just need to do a little more editing and I might end up posting some more tonight but I make no promises. Anyway do NOT let this chapter fool you into thinking I like Jiraiya, I hate that man so much it's unreal and Naruto is at his BEST whenever he's disrespecting that greasy old bitch. But regardless of my feelings, Naruto did care about him canon wise so I guess I kind of have to write him in a semi-good light because it is Naruto's pov and that's how Naruto views him. Hope you guys enjoy and leave comments!


	9. inside every man is the seed of a flower; if you look within you find beauty and power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He turned his pointed glare toward her. Still sitting there with that stupid dumbfounded look on her face. In her eyes, he could see clearly all the things that had brought them together, that made their bond so, and his heart ached a bit. Her heart aches too, he thought unbidden and knew it to be true.

"Why are we doing this again?" Naruto disturbed the silence once more. Sitting still was not her forte, especially for hours at a time and they hadn't even reached the thirty-minute mark yet. "I feel like I'm wasting my time. Again." She finished with a pout. 

Not to mention she was still sleepy and the old man had not provided breakfast before dragging her to the clearing outside their camp. Granted, he'd warned her of this and told her to be up and ready before the break of dawn, but well...she'd been up all night studying the small fuinjutsu scroll he'd introduced her to a few weeks ago. She was eager to absorb any and everything regarding the dying art once she learned her parents had been masters at it, especially her anonymous mother. She'd never taken to anything so easily in her life. To say the least, she was excited to tackle something she was actually good at, something her parents were good at. In those moments, whenever she grasped a concept and memorized patterns in sealing, it felt like she was closer to them somehow. 

"You need to work on your emotions kid, and the best way to go about that is meditation. Finding some semblance of peace with yourself and your circumstances can go a long way in controlling your feelings and by extension the Kyuubi. The last thing we need is a repeat of last time." Jiraiya explained, growing more pointed in tone toward the end. 

Naruto flushed with embarrassment. Yeah, last time she'd tried to claw his eyes out and it was a very, very, near thing. She performed the tale-tell nic of scratching the back of her head with a sheepish grin. "Right, right. I'll try again."

She straightened her posture, ironing her back out from the prior disinterested slouch she was in. She fell into the full lotus pose like he’d taught her before closing her eyes. 

The meadow was beautiful, filled with tall grass spotted with yellow daisies. In the distance, sakura trees loomed largely, their petals rustling in the autumn wind. The hilltops were coated in pink. There was birdsong and buzzing insects rising in crescendo for morning's symphony as the sun steadily touched the horizon. Nature's song. These things were supposed to ease her into it but they were more distracting than they were grounding. 

"Don't focus on the external factors, Naruto," Jiraiya guides, and she listens. "Just yourself. Only yourself." His voice then becomes a distant echo. 

For once, she focused on herself. It was terrifying. She was afraid of what she might find, the dark emotions lurking just beneath the surface, beneath her sunny disposition. Emotions that have always been there, a festering wound that she refused to prod at. Whenever she tried, something ugly would form in her chest and spread like mold before she hastily patched it away. Built walls upon walls on top of it to hide that sickening rot. And whenever she grew angry, really angry, it consumed her. 

That's what Pervy Sage wanted her to focus on. Naruto's never been one to run away from a challenge but...this was different. This wasn't some complex jutsu or training regime, this was something intimate, something personal. She wasn't ready. She's ignored it for so long that it's taken on a life of its own. 

But she knows that eventually, she'll need to learn control. 

She'd nearly hurt Jiraiya, what's to say she wouldn't do it again? She'd done it to Sasuke. Had let rage consume her, abandoning the reason she'd possessed when she first confronted him. She was ready to hurt him in a real way, bring him back broken instead of letting him leave whole, _her best friend_. She'd allowed the Kyuubi no Kitsune to get the best of her because she couldn't control her emotions.

Oh, fine. _Fine_.

This would be a work in progress but, she'd tackle this eventually. Find peace with herself, learn to let things go, leave things in the past. She could do it, _she could do it_. She'd counter all the feelings of sadness and anger with happiness and love, she'd remember the good things, the precious things that even hatred couldn't taint. 

It would be a cold day in hell before she gave the Kyuubi no Kitsune reign over her body to hurt those close to her. 

She allowed herself to fall into her subconscious. It felt like floating, no- like sinking further and further into the eye of a maelstrom. But despite how tumultuous the waves and the currents, the constant pull, and tug of the eddies, she had a tenacious grasp on control. She was falling and she wanted to. 

Naruto opened her eyes and came face to face with the demon fox. He bared his teeth at her. A single tooth was as tall as a grown man. A morbid thought crossed her mind then. She wondered if his teeth were strong enough to crush a grown man’s skull until the brains spilled out like juice from a busted fruit. Then with no pause, she wondered what _she_ would look like between his teeth.

“A bloody meat bag,” he promised. The thought seemed to please him. 

“Yeah right,” she challenged, just to see that smug smile twist into a snarl. 

“I’ve cracked the skulls of giants between my jaws,” he boasted, and he was pleased again. He loved boasting of his past exploits, loved intruding in on her dreams so that she may bear witness to them. “You’d burst open like a fig, you’d be fruit skin on my teeth,

“And your existence is little more than a blink in the eye of eternity. That morbid curiosity will be made real someday, and someday I’ll pick you from between my teeth and molars,”

His voice was as hard as granite and a deafening chorus of madness. When he spoke a thousand voices spoke with him. It was unholy, made her feel like her eardrums were going to burst and bleed when she listened too hard and too long, a far cry from the dark rumblings he whispered into her conscious thought. It dawned on her then that this truly was a demon, only a demon could have that kind of effect.

“Yeah, yeah whatever just stop messing with my dreams,” she demanded, but the demand went unheard.

“Every day I feed off of your life. The more you use me the more I eat. In return, I give you the power to protect the world that your body was used to keep me from. A deal with the devil that you didn't even make. And one day your soul will be mine. A true sacrifice. The only one who’s losing is you. How does that make you feel whelp, pathetic?”

Naruto felt her throat go dry, felt her muscles stiffen tightly. She hadn't thought that was possible in her mindscape. 

The girl let out a dry chuckle, “Shut the hell up, you stupid fox. I’m tired of your yapping. You keep it up and I’ll have the old man put a seal on me that’ll lock you up tighter,”

The creature growled something terrible. The bars trembling and water boiling, it burned her. She sat down in it, lotus pose, and closed her eyes. She wanted to go further than this, to the place she’d been that night (which feels so long ago now) before the Kyuubi forcibly dragged her away from it. That would spite him.

She tuned out the sound of cursing and growling, chanting _focus focus focus_ in her mind's eye. _Deeper_ , she told herself, reaching for that maelstrom and beyond that something more, _I want to go deeper._ The sound of leaking pipes and turbulent water faded away, and so did the smell of sewage and iron.

When Naruto opened her eyes again she was met with a blinding white landscape without form. 

She tried not to immediately panic, reminding herself that this was what she wanted. Something airy and cool tickled the back of her neck. She strained her eyes to find some form of shape in the unseeable vista surrounding her. She doesn't remember it being like this, though she’ll admit she’d been in a bit of daze, so wrapped up in Sasuke was she. 

And then what was once a blank limbo became streaks of dark ink bleeding into the canvas. 

A red string began to materialize, translucent in nature but solid to the touch, and it ebbed and flowed and flowed until there was a distinguished beginning and end. And at the end (or beginning?) was him. On the edge of a foreboding precipice. A thick cloud-like darkness that hung behind him, little more than a menacing shroud. The smell of iron and ozone infiltrated the air, and a deep chill settled into the atmosphere. 

The shock and tension were palpable. For a moment, she couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Here he was, before her once again, either real or imagined, staring at her with almost unseeing eyes. 

The shock on his face melted into one of impassivity and she knew- _she knew_ \- it was really him. 

* * *

Sasuke had been meditating. He'd found out it was a good way to gain control over his curse mark and Orochimaru had reluctantly insisted upon it. Better a behaved dog than a mad dog and that mark could make anyone go insane. The emotions directly affected the curse mark and the flow of chakra that entered his own so it only stood to reason that to consciously regulate it at will he'd need to gain more control over his emotions. This way, he could manipulate how much or how little of the sannins chakra entered his body. It was all about control, agency, some semblance of fucking autonomy. 

He hadn't expected to fall so deep into his subconscious, didn't even believe it was possible to be so aware while in his subconscious. But he was, and while that'd be a note of pride any other time, it wasn't now. This was his own fault. For thinking about her or the dark crescent-shaped _thing_ that marks his left palm, even for a sliver of a second while meditating. Now he was in some sort of limbo with her, desperately thinking of a way to get out. He duly noted the tether between them, connecting them. 

_A spiritual manifestation of our bond,_ his mind labeled it, almost instinctively. Unbroken and as strong as ever. Even after everything he'd done to severe it. It was still there. 

Sasuke clenched his jaw, the sound of his teeth grinding together cutting through the silence. 

The black webs began to spread, inching closer, and closer to her side of the shared space. Sasuke took hold of the bond and yanked at it, trying to dislodge its hold in his heart. But it wouldn't budge. Not even a little. Only split into a thousand threads that wrapped around his fingers.

He turned his pointed glare toward her. Still sitting there with that stupid dumbfounded look on her face. In her eyes, he could see clearly all the things that had brought them together, that made their bond so, and his heart ached a bit. _Her heart aches too,_ he thought unbidden and knew it to be true.

Sasuke hadn't thought of her in weeks since their last encounter, had punished himself with intense training whenever he tried and now she was here in front of him. Their bond was in front of him. Mocking him and his iron resolve. 

Within seconds she was gone (as though he'd willed her away), the light dissolving right before his eyes, and he was alone again. In the darkness of his mind, memories of the past lurking in the thick black smog behind him. Memories of his family, of Itachi and Shisui, and the ultimate betrayal that ended it all. It was difficult to be unconscious of them when they were so terribly _loud_. 

He steadied himself. He hadn't seen hers but maybe her memories had been hidden by that thick and suffocating smog of light.

Nothing worth remembering or holding onto, he bet, except for perhaps those of him and the team he abandoned. He wonders if she even noticed. It doesn't matter. _She_ doesn't matter. He's better off forgetting about her again. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again he's back at the hideout. He'd never been so grateful to see those cold clammy walls. 

* * *

When Naruto comes too, she's shaken to her core, overcome with wave after wave of vertigo. She abruptly stands up, eager to move about to process her riled thoughts but Jiraiya stops her when she begins to sway on her feet. 

"You shouldn't have stood up so fast, kid. You've been out of it for a while." He gently reprimands, guiding her back to their camp. 

She smells cinnamon-flavored oatmeal before she sees it and she mumbles gratefully, fixing herself a bowl and sitting down on a worn log.

It's silent for a while before her master questions her. "Something you wanna tell me? You seemed kind of distressed back there. Was it the Kyuubi?"

She shakes her head in the negative. A part of her wants to tell the truth but something inside of her, something primal and protective of her bond with Sasuke, won't allow her. 

She smiles groggily at his disbelieving face, "Heh, it's not that. It's just, I guess I got a lot of stuff to work on if I want to reach that inner peace."


	10. my angry adolescence divided; my angels on angel dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That's just you growing up, kid, " Jiraiya tells her, but he has this wistful look in his eyes. As if he too senses the winds of change.
> 
> She feels the gentle pangs of Sasuke’s emotions, and wonders if he senses the change too.

At the beginning of the year, she's age thirteen. She embarks on a training journey with a man who buries his sorrows beneath bottles of liquor and enjoys the company of women. Toward the end of the year, she's nearing her fourteenth birthday and so much has happened and so much has changed. Things aren't perfect, Pervy Sage still fancies his sake and late nights at the brothels, but it no longer interferes with her training. 

Towards the end, she becomes more in tune with her emotions, even though she still has a hard time controlling the more complex feelings. Even in the heat of rage (or slight irritation or angst or anything at all. Damn that fox.) when she feels the burn of red acid as it courses through her chakra, it never manages to form a cloak around her body. It's enough to make her faster and enhance her senses and add more strength to her hits, but never enough to make her eyes go red with corruption.

It feels good to have some control, she tells herself, even when it feels like she’s just locking these emotions away. Whenever an angry thought emerges she stops herself from embracing it (it doesn't feel right though) and once she (somewhat) masters the meditation exercises Pervy Sage moves her training along to more exciting things. 

Like finding her elemental affinity. Apparently, it's something all ninjas have. And she has the best one! The rarest and the most difficult to master: wind. 

When she tries it out on the chakra paper, and it splits in half, it feels right. Like an awakening of sorts. Jiraiya just says she's being an overdramatic teen, but she doesn't miss the fond smile he gives her. 

Those chakra exercises come in handy because to master an element as rare and deadly as the wind she needs control. 

"Your chakra reserves are so large, if you were to gain control to utilize all of it, there's no limit to what you could do. You could use it in taijutsu during combat, without ever weaving a hand seal. Similar to the Rasengan." Jiraiya explained, and she pictured it. The image was something similar to what she looks like under the influence of the Kyuubi, but instead of being surrounded by toxic chakra, she's surrounded by her own chakra, so dense and powerful that it's visible. 

Pervy Sage smiled knowingly at the dreamy look on her face. "That's right, kid. Now imagine using all that chakra with your wind affinity. A wind release chakra mode. In other words, nintaijutsu. 

"I'm gonna teach you a fighting style that utilizes this usage of chakra. Wind Style Fighting Technique." 

Naruto had beamed with excitement. Finally, something cool! Though she knew how important it all was, she was tired of the chakra exercises and excessive meditation. 

"And," Jiraiya started, pausing for effect. "This was your parents' fighting style. Your dad created it, for both your mother and himself. They were both wind affinities, just like you."

At that tidbit of knowledge, Naruto practically vibrated out of her skin with excitement, jumping around with flailing hands and loud squeals. "Finally! Something that's gonna help me kick-ass, 'ttebayo! And I'm gonna kick so much ass with something my parents made!"

"Hey, language kid!" Pervy Sage chastised, but there was no real heat in it. "It won't be easy Naruto...but I know you'll get it down in no time." _I learned a long time ago to stop doubting you kid._

"This'll be a piece of cake for the future Hokage!" Jiraiya ruffled her hair with a deep chuckle. She gave him her widest grin yet, and despite all he was doing to make up for his past mistakes he felt he didn't deserve it. 

He'd failed her parents and had nearly failed her because of that past failure. But, it was so hard sometimes.

Sometimes she looked so much like Kushina, from the brownness of her skin to the curls in her hair. Then some days she looked like Minato, and those days always hit the hardest. 

She had the slight sharpness of Minato's almond-shaped eyes but the overall roundness of Kushina's. She had Kushina's nose and wide-mouthed smile. Her face wasn't as round as Kushina's but not as pointed and angular as Minato's either. Most obviously, she had Minato's unique coloring. The bright sky blue eyes and the sunshine hair commonly found in Kumogakure. But as it grew from the short cut from her preteens it fell to her back in lovely spirals, like Kushina's. She had the best of both of her parents, both in looks and personality. 

She had their compassion and determination, charisma, and friendly nature. And most of all she had their heart, big enough to fit the whole world in. All of the best parts, and none of the worst. 

Though, he has to admit that sometimes...she simply looked like herself. There was something about her that was immeasurable, intangible, and timeless. Greater than even Minato, who'd shaped up to be a figure forever immortalized and revered. Jiraiya’s enhanced senses made it hard to ignore the unique chakra that flowed through her, notwithstanding the Kyuubi's. It was constantly shifting, changing, growing in abundance. She truly was a special child. 

"Why do you want to be Hokage?" He questioned out of the blue. 

Well, not really. It was a question he'd been saving for a while. The question that'd determine whether or not she was truly worthy of the title. It was every child's dream to become Hokage but not every child did. It was Naruto's dream as well, but a dream rooted in abandonment, and while she'd fought tooth and nail to prove to her foes and naysayers that she was a worthy candidate it didn't mean that she was. 

Being Hokage... it was more than power or acknowledgment of that power. It's one of the many reasons why he refused the hat, and one of the many reasons why it was more suited for Tsunade than the likes of him. More suited for Minato than him. Minato, who would have changed _everything_ and for the better. 

"Huh?" She became startled, and a bit flustered. Clearly taken off guard.

"I mean, once you take the hat, what happens next?" Jiraiya explained, stern but gentle.

Naruto went unusually silent for a moment, thoughtful and contemplative. 

"I want to be Hokage to change the shinobi way." Something dawned in her eyes, an epiphany of sorts. He could practically hear the bells tolling and the cogwheels turning. 

"Change the shinobi way huh?" He rubbed his chin. 

The blonde-haired child nodded, more confident in her answer. Interesting, very interesting. 

"And what's wrong with the shinobi way?" he inquired. They currently sat beneath an apple tree, one of many that filled this orchard.

Naruto pouted in thought before speaking. 

"The shinobi way is why I have a demon sealed inside of me, why it was sealed inside me the day I was born. Because I'm meant to be a tool right? If they really wanted to get rid of the Kyuubi, they would just kill me. You said it yourself that if I die then the Kyuubi disappears, which is why it works hard to keep me alive. So if Konoha really wanted it gone for good…” she visibly swallowed, fists clenching. “but they didn't. Because they want to use me, just how Suna used Gaara. Just how the Akatsuki want to use me. Just how Orochimaru wants to use Sasuke." She grew solemn for a moment, before bouncing back just as quickly. "But if it's one thing that I've learned, I'm not a tool. I don't want to be a tool. Or a weapon used to destroy another village. I'm more than that, I'm a person. And I only want to use my power to protect those precious to me. To protect lives, not take them. I want to make it to where people are not used as tools, especially kids."

Her eyes were fierce and determined, burning with the fabled fire all shinobi of the Leaf are said to possess.

"That's not gonna be easy, kid." he challenged. 

She scoffed. "Just because it's not easy doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Besides, when has that ever stopped me!" The girl grinned, all white teeth and canines. 

Naruto's truly a special child.

"Hm...you just might do it." He decides then that she truly is worthy of the title.

On her fourteenth birthday, he lets her study Kushina and Minato’s legendary seals. He thinks she is worthy of that as well. And it is her legacy after all.

* * *

Protect the weak and defend the innocent. This had been the motto of his father's police force. 

Protect and defend. 

At fifteen, Sasuke infiltrates the villages left untouched by Iwagakure, the ones that wish to resist Orochimaru’s new rule. 

Stubborn, Orochimaru had called them. But Sasuke knows that they’re tired of this tug of war between powerful nations, tired of being bargained over like a slave. 

He doesn't kill anyone, he refused and made sure his squad knew not to lest they face his wrath. There was no point, it'd only be a useless senseless slaughter. What was a group of fishermen to a platoon of shinobi?

He couldn't stop the other squads, however. Those who were not beneath his command. 

It wasn't all of them, but it was most of them, deep-rooted in being young and dumb, and it’s never muted, in fact, it’s much louder whenever they’re set loose upon the world. That doesn't excuse their actions, however.

They did as they pleased. They murdered, they raped, and most importantly, they stole. And now the tiny village is beholden to Oto, along with the resources they have. 

All for the benefit of Sound. Eating up and bullying the small towns and villages around it. 

It makes him wonder, it really does, that if a nation as new and small as Sound is doing it, what are the older, much larger shinobi nations doing? They say that the ANBU handles the shadier parts of the shinobi world. What shadier parts? This? Are they doing things like this? 

Sabotaging, stealing, coercing. 

Itachi had been in ANBU at age thirteen. Sabotaging, stealing, coercing, at _thirteen_. Destroying lives and leaving the survivors to burn in the agony of poverty, at thirteen.

_Killing our family must've been a walk in the park for him,_ he thinks and it makes Sasuke feel dirty. He doesn't want to be anything like That Man. 

There was a code his father had always lived by, a code passed down from generation to generation. A code he'd taught Itachi, and Sasuke, a code that the Uchiha Elders preached on and on about to the youth. To honor your name and honor your brethren by protecting the weak, defending the innocent, and upholding the just. 

He can't imagine his father would be too proud of his sons now, with how they’ve broken every single code the man had tried to drill into them.

The next time Orochimaru sends them out, Sasuke does stop it. The other squads protest at first but go silent at the sight of his Sharingan and the threatening crackle of his Chidori. They know who he is, they've seen what he's capable of during training and they know how many bounties he's collected, how many S-Rank missions he's undergone in the span of a year alone, they know that on some level he has their master’s favor. The prized vessel. There'd be hell to pay if they tried to harm it. Sasuke uses all of this to his advantage and miraculously, they follow his command. There's a lesson to be learned from this, he doesn't know if he's learning the right one, but he doesn't care. 

They take what they need, do what they were told to do (bend the village leader to their will), and nothing else. The villagers are left physically unscathed and Sasuke feels less dirty. 

"You stood on the behalf of the villagers." Orochimaru crooned. The bastards were quick to report his actions to the snake sannin. The smile the man gives him is sickly sweet. “ I must say, this is a far cry from the boy who murdered and burned the bodies of pitiful prisoners simply because they became a hassle. And to think, I was starting to become more impressed with you,”

Sasuke hates him. Hates him almost as much as he hates Itachi. 

"How very brave of you my sweet Sasuke. I sent out the best of the best and you had them running back to me with their tails tucked between their legs," Orochimaru chuckled, a sound akin to a funeral toll, with gaps between the strikes.

"In fact, you've done many brave feats. Enough to land you in the bingo book." 

The temperature dropped, the cool air freezing the smile on his pale, gaunt face, his yellow eyes piercing in the dim light of the hall. "Brave men get themselves killed. Would that you were a coward instead, the grief you'd save me, my sweet Sasuke,” 

Sasuke clenched his fist. "As long as you involve me in those pathetic raids on minor villages, I will interfere. Only brute cowards make prey of the weak. If that truly was the best of the best, then I feel sorry for you. All of your training on them has gone to waste." 

The snake sannin chuckled again. "Is that so?"

One by one, each of the culprits that he confronted and threatened crept from the shadow, equal parts offended, amused, and enraged. "Would you like to test that theory out?"

All at once, they attacked. His Sharingan activated, and before they could so much as lay a hand on him, he made quick work of them with taijutsu alone. That's not to say it was easy. They were strong and fast, and there were several of them and one of him. 

He came out on top all the same. 

"Well, well, I suppose you were right." The man smiled, as though he already knew Sasuke would triumph. He'd been testing him, Sasuke realized. Testing his prowess, measuring his progress by putting him up against some of the best this hideout had to offer.

Orochimaru tilted his head, visibly confused. "Why are they still alive?"

Sasuke frowned. "I already told you, only brute cowards make prey of the weak. These scum are not worth wetting my blade." Sasuke would not be the one to kill them. It wouldn't benefit him and it wouldn't give him any pleasure. He'd leave them to Orochimaru's tender mercy. 

The snake sannin's face was like stone, still, cool and smooth. "Don't let this get to your head. _Your body is mine, your soul for me to devour not your pride._ " He hissed, voice slithering through every nook and cranny. "You're dismissed."

* * *

  
  


The girl calls the wind to her and it comes. She turns a full circle and sends the winds unhindered across the land. It's so dense, so powerful, that it burns its impression into the ground beneath her, a large whirlpool.

The style suits her. The strikes are swift and deft and instinctively animal, the wind sharp enough to cut through the skin.

More likely than not her opponents will be bigger than her, with physical strength greater than her own. It's not the matter of making up for what she lacks in physical strength with spiritual strength, (because Naruto is strong) but finding an equilibrium between the two. Not everyone has the time or patience to do that, and while she's still working on the latter she has a lot of the former. 

She's always had strong hits, could break bones and noses just as easily as anyone else but somehow _this_ is better. 

_This_ hadn't been easy. Pervy Sage had pushed her far, breached the line of her limits, and then some. The day would see her rise, clothes still intact and enough energy to spare, but the night would see her limp to bed ragged, clothes torn and soiled. 

She'd spent a month mastering wind release and all of the winter and spring trying to master nintaijutsu. 

Her efforts are finally bearing fruit.

Much like chakra, there are two types of energies while using fighting techniques. Jin and Li. 

Li is brute force, the drawing back of the fists to land brutal blows that can knock someone's teeth out. Jin, however, is the embodiment of speed, made for crafty creatures, masters in the art of trickery. Like a cat or a fox, it requires you to be lax, ever the illusion of ease. The relaxed posture serves as a deception, to lure the opponent in, give them a false sense of security. And when that happens she must evade, with the foot flow patterns designed to avoid kicks, the rollaway that wards off blows, and the soft techniques used to break free of deathly grips. 

Should the enemy stay on the defensive, she relies on both Li and Jin, the instinctual need to break something _and_ leave lasting internal damage. Like the Rasengan. Compressed wind chakra wraps around her like a cloak and becomes a blade. 

Sometimes Pervy Sage creates a shadow clone-stronger than ten of her own put together- and has it henge into Kakashi to use as a sparring partner. Though sometimes _he_ sparred against her and those spars were truly challenging. He was a force to reckon with on his own _without_ taijutsu but the sight of such a tall and broad man moving as fluidly and agile as a man of Kakashi's age and build is unnerving. 

Especially when said man is coming at you full force, because you told him you didn't want to be treated like a sissy. 

Sometimes Naruto wishes she'd shut her big mouth. 

After she's knocked into the ground and humbled, Pervy Sage moves their training onto something else. One of the many projects she's been working on since her fourteenth birthday.

She's already creating her own storage scrolls, with seals only she has the ability to unlock (well, besides Pervy Sage, but he's a seal master and he says it's only a matter of time before she catches up to him), and she's learning other types of seals. Seals used for combat. The large fuinjutsu scroll he always has her reading is full of them, a scroll that she suspects also belonged to her parents.

Her suspicions are proved correct when she studies the seal for chakra chains, chains that her mother supposedly used, according to Jiraiya. The seal has the tell-tale sign of whirlpools, maelstroms, and typhoons, just like the rest of the seals within the scroll. 

The formation of chakra chains is pure instinct, at least that's what Pervy Sage claims. It's not unlike a bloodline. The ability to form these chains is so hardwired into her DNA it becomes second nature once she enables the ability (via seal) to do so. It takes a bit of meditation and a lot of concentration, but slowly, she begins to form links that stretch yards long, streaks of gold that never ends. 

In six months she'll be fifteen. 

She practically vibrates with anticipation, an intuition that tells her these last three and half years were the calm before the storm, and that her life is about to take a sharp turn. 

It'd happened the night before her genin exams, it'd happened the night before the mission to the Wave, and it'd happened the night before the third exam during the Chunin Exams, and she’d even felt it that night at the labor camp, right before her strange collision with Sasuke. This intense energy served as a herald for immense change in her life. And now it is more clear than ever, that with her new abilities and her state of mind, that life is going to test these newly acquired assets at every turn.

"That's just you growing up, kid, " Jiraiya tells her, but he has this wistful look in his eyes. As if he too senses the winds of change.

She feels the gentle pangs of Sasuke’s emotions, and wonders if he senses the change too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel kinda iffy about this chapter but I figured why the hell not post it. might come back and edit anyhow.


	11. history is doomed to repeat itself; and there is no escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was in the autumn that she learned she was to leave her home. And it was in the autumn that she learned she would never be able to return to it. 
> 
> Such is the way of the world. Kushina had learned that lesson early. That autumn is where things go to die.

**10/10**

When she first found out she was pregnant she knew it would be a girl. The thought had come and settled in her mind like a drifting seed. Once her mind is set on something woe to the person who beset to change it. Minato had doubted her, the few times he ever did. 

_How could you possibly know?_ He asked, though in the manner in which he asked why a seal might function the way that it does or why the earth rotates and why the sun sinks below the horizon and why the moon never abandons its place in the sky.

She had just smiled at him and pointed at herself. _Because I’m the mother._ That was answer enough for him.

_This girl will be her mother's daughter through and through,_ Mikoto had commented one summer evening at a local tea shop, fresh from childbirth herself. Kushina never failed to complain about the way her child kicked and kicked at her stomach, though with a mother's pride. It was an inside joke among their circle of friends. 

_Oh yes,_ Mikoto had laughed, a slither of sunlight dancing on her lovely face, _this girl is her mother’s child._

But even Kushina had had her doubts. She spent countless afternoons wondering if perhaps it was a boy, wondering if the child would even look like her, and she wondered if it would be a curse if the child did. 

_Never,_ Minato had answered in earnest, kissing her deeply. He rubbed and rubbed at her belly. _A blessing_ , he whispered. 

What would she have done without him?

She had come to Konoha in the spring, (barely a girl let alone a woman) where everything was green and dull, a far cry from the topless towers of blue and gold and every bright audacious color her people could get ahold of. Where beautiful birds of every flock graced clear skies and children danced along the shores of white-sanded beaches, kissed by the tides of a clear blue ocean. People smiled freely there and the air smelled of freshly cut fruit and salt.

Konoha smelled of pine and soil, and the towering trees devoured the sky and the only birds were crows. Whenever she looked up there was a building skewing her view, and the monument that overlooked the village was overwhelming. It felt like those stone eyes were following her everywhere, condemning her as a foreigner, as an outsider. _You don’t belong here_ , they seemed to say. _And you never will._

She’d hated it there. She had wanted to go home. She never would.

Minato had gotten her through it, in his own way, no matter how much she had resented him for it as a young girl. She loved him for it as a woman, still loves him for it now. Always getting them through things, in his own way, even when death is near.

It was in the autumn that she learned she was to leave her home. And it was in the autumn that she learned she would never be able to return to it. 

Such is the way of the world. Kushina had learned that lesson early. That autumn is where things go to die. It is her first thought at the beginning of her death and her daughter is her last. She chuckles a little, though in her ears it sounds like a scream.

_I knew she would be a girl._

* * *

**An Address to the People (That Never Came to Pass)**

**10/08/XXXX**

The Warring States Era is a bloody stain on the history of our founding, that is often quickly dismissed, forgotten, and buried in the archives. Safely kept from the prying eyes of our youth. My hope is to rectify that.

The Shogun Wars that predated this period had created a power vacuum that would bring forth an era of constant warfare. Clans kept to themselves and served only their interests.

When the empires fell, as empires always do, the land splinted into a thousand pieces, land filled with game and rich soil for crops. It was all up for grabs. It’s no wonder then, that the Senju came to the Land of Fire, though no one is quite sure where from. Perhaps from the disputed lands between Earth and Lighting, or from the islands where their sister clan once presided. It is all up for speculation. But when they came, they came with religion and riches and power. They appealed to the self-styled Daimyo of the time (who must have been as impressionable then as they are today) but owned little more than ¼ of the land that they own now. 

At the time, the majority of the land belonged to powerful clans, but none more so than the Uchiha clan who’d taken precedence over the land since the dawn ages, descendants of the offspring from the indigenous people and migrants whose identity remains ambiguous....and who might have carried the genetic mutation known as the Sharingan or as the Lord Second would have called it, the Curse of Hatred. 

_(Minato pauses in his writing, massaging his temple. There is a dull throb there and it only grows in pain as he looks at the scattering of dusty scrolls and books he’d taken from the archives. He sought to compress all of that knowledge into a journal with no more than two hundred pages. He looks at the clock, a quarter past midnight, before continuing.)_

Though for the sake of realism, the myths and legends will be left where they belong. Buried and dead. After all, the Shogunate Period was a period where many old bloodlines (most of which are now extinct) developed or mutated into new bloodlines.

The alliance between the Senju clan and Daimyo was a herald for the wars to come and would lead the world into the Warring States Era. 

During the era of the pre-warring state, the Senju grew in numbers and popularity, while the Fire Daimyo began to gain political acclaim after being officially elected as the authority of the country by the civilians and clans alike, save the Uchiha clan, who remained steadfast in their solitude way of life and ancient Shinto religion. 

Religion must have been one of the numerous causes of friction between the two powerful clans.

The Senju began to influence the Daimyo with ideologies and theologies, in hopes of spreading their religion: Ninshu, and for the most part, they were widely successful. There isn’t a village in this country where you won’t find a temple dedicated to the Sage. 

The Senju also made fast allies with the Sarutobi clan and other clans (who may or may not still exist) while forming neutral treaties with the Akimichi, Nara, and Yamanaka. They started offering protection to towns and villages in exchange for goods, services, and revenue. The Senju must have looked more favorable in the eyes of society than the distant and sometimes hostile Uchiha clan, or so history claims, which in turn caused villages and clients to turn their allegiance toward the Senju (who would bring in the new world) in lieu of the Uchiha (who most felt were stuck in the old one). Yet another cause of conflict between the Uchiha and Senju.

Still, the country had been no bigger than a large island, with more than half belonging to the Uchiha. Pieces of land that the alliance coveted, and pieces of land the Senju began to gradually claim. 

The land was perfect for agriculture, with nearby rivers and lakes, and more towns and villages could be established under the Daimyo’s jurisdiction, thus expanding the Fire Country not only in name but inland as well. In return, the Senju would be rewarded with riches, lands of their choosing, and titles. A formality really, considering the Senju already had that. I suspect what they really coveted was the Fire Daimyo's ear and esteem. They were very ambitious, in a way some clans could only hope to be, and it’s an ambition I respect, despite the decades-long ramifications of that ambition.

In the Daimyo’s name, the Senju were given the authorization to go to war with the Uchiha, and since the Uchiha refused to acknowledge the Daimyo’s authority it was quite easy to brand them as enemies of the state. It didn’t help that they were seen as strange outsiders worshipping a dying religion. Other clans, both shinobi, and civilians, began waging war against their own adversaries. 

This war, in both the politicians’ and historians' eyes, was good. It yielded more political acclaim to the Daimyo to have an army fighting in his name, which in turn yielded more authority and power to his rule in the eyes of the other nations and people within the nation.

Not only did war break out in the Fire Country but in the other elemental nations as well, between other powerful clans. Thus began the Warring States Period. 

The period lasted five hundred years resulting in short lifespans and child soldier casualties. In the end, the Uchiha eventually surrendered and formed an alliance with the Senju, in hopes of ending the strife, though almost a century later little has changed in the way of short lifespans and child casualties. 

The bureaucrats in the capital have made sure of that, though the Kages who fuel the war machine have not helped either. 

_(Minato himself was guilty, and if he were to be put on trial for his crimes he knows he would be a dead man. He thinks of Obito and Rin who he failed, and Kakashi who he is still failing. A dead, dead man.)_

A nation built on blood is a nation guaranteed to collapse in on itself. Such a nation simply cannot survive. History has shown this time and time again and yet humanity has not learned the err of their ways. 

This is a nation that thrives off of the war machine, a nation that fights its wars in foreign lands in hopes of laying claim on it, a nation that turns children into soldiers fighting for a war based entirely on greed. And that is not even the end of this nation's crimes.

Despite the alliance between the Senju and Uchiha, the prejudice held for the clan carried on into the common era. This sprung discriminatory laws and statues that unjustly regulate, segregate, and ostracize one of our founding clans, and most of these laws and statues have been in place since Konoha’s founding, and have only increased in number. 

They are not the only group of people who are facing this treatment. You’ll find that in almost every nation there is a stigma against bloodline clans (look to the Land of Water, now known as the Bloody Mist, for their infamous genocide on all clans containing a bloodline), immigrants, orphans, and jinchuriki (who have been ostracized since their creation). 

These laws, codes, and statutes enable economic disparities and systematic injustice via work, education, and living environments, which were specifically designed to target certain demographics within Konoha, none more so than the Uchiha clan. To make matters worse the ramification for these actions passed by former leaders and powerful politicians has bled into the social interactions of Konoha’s citizens. The people have been taught to hate and fear what they do not understand. 

This terrible truth is the bedrock of Konoha’s society, on which ideologies are built off of, but a truth that is oftentimes forgotten or deliberately hidden and ignored. 

A great injustice has been done, continuously perpetuated, and left uncorrected. An injustice that needs to be addressed, a wound left festering that needs to be healed. If not I fear-

_(Minato did not want to write what he feared but the first step to healing was confronting.)_

I fear we will once again descend into an era of constant warfare of a magnitude we have not seen since the Warring States Era and not only will we be facing external forces but ourselves, those who we would have otherwise called brethren. 

A monster of our own making.

* * *

**A few years before the present**

If there was anything that history taught him, it was that people never learned from the mistakes of the past. 

The night was black, so black that the mountain ranges looming large in the distance took on a stark shadowy form against the backdrop of the dark sky. The air was thick with the smell of petrichor and the stony ground was slippery from the rain and blood.

He’d handled the Iwa shinobi with ease and now it was only a matter of setting the stage for the performers. He'll place their corpses at someone's border, and whichever nation he chose would catch the blame from the hunter-nin.

For so long the world had danced to the tune of his song, as he pulled their strings from the shadows. He’d made them gorge on lies, poisoned their blood with deceit, had rekindled the hatred that’d simmered in their hearts for generations until now… it will all come to heel, in due time. 

For months now he’s been sending out chaos agents to cause skirmishes along the borders. War dogs he’d personally trained to cause conflict. Some disguised as shinobi of villages with a history of enmity to attack unsuspecting ninja with every intention of letting a few survive the conflict. They would run to their leaders and tell the tale Tobi had weaved. 

The funny thing though, is that their bloodlust and warmongering ways are already there, and like a fish eyeing the worm on a hook, the leaders will fall for the bait every time.

One would wonder why he goes through all this trouble to stir havoc if the endgame is all the same. In truth, Tobi just wants to watch the world burn before he creates a new, better one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of it. Currently working on chapters 12 and 13. I hope you guys get a sense of where I'm going with this story, sometimes I worry I'm not being blunt enough with my writing. Anyhow, please comment and let me know what you think!


	12. people die in revolutions; the wicked and the innocent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pale smile of the moon cast the masked man’s shadow on the ground twenty feet tall, a heralding of death itself.

Sasuke was fifteen when he finally killed Orochimaru.

* * *

He had broken one of the rules, though at the time it hadn’t seemed as extreme as the others he’d broken. By now Orochimaru was used to his defiance and even humored it when it amused him. But the rules _‘do not go here, do not go there’_ had been a rule Sasuke strangely took heed to. Until now. 

Perhaps it was curiosity that possessed his limbs or the boredom of the monotony that plagued his days which was strange on its own or that telltale ambiance that gently knocked against the solidness of his skull. He walks down this hallway, takes a right, then a left, goes down and further still, wondering what he might find, wondering why he even cares. 

He finds a girl, twisted and blue. 

Finds them all twisted and blue, with black eyes and black hands. On racks and walls, displayed like the meat at a slaughterhouse. Cut into pieces or sewn together, parts that do not quite match. Lined on the walls that stretch for days. It would take him ten years he thinks before ever reaching the end of the room. It is so cold in here, in this room, in this wing he was not supposed to go to, the rules he’d been indifferent to until now. 

There is no blood, the room is absent of the smell of it, and the girl, twisted and blue, stares at him with endless holes for eyes, in fact, eyes are absent of her. He imagines her skin is as cold as death and rock-solid, laid out on a silver table. Chest open and everything within sealed into jars. _They robbed her_ , he thinks morbidly, _there is nothing left in her_.

He does not know what is a worse fate. To be hollowed out into a husk or being made into an inhabitable flesh bag. The girl, with twisted limbs frozen in place and skin so dead that it's blue, stares at him with black holes for eyes, sneers at him with lips fattened by blackened blood and cold, unforgivable rot, and he knows that the contempt is deserved.

To Orochimaru immortality was something that could be stored in a jar. Or hacked into with sterilized scalpels. Something that could be prodded, peeled, or picked at. Was something that you could pull apart then reassemble like a jigsaw puzzle and contain in a freezer to be frozen in one man’s image forever. Twisted horrors with skin of blue and rotting holes for eyes.

His Sharingan is on before he can stop himself, the perversion of men forever emboldened into his memory, another memorial to stand proudly in its terrible bleakness within the gallery of his mind. And it is then, as he escapes the horrid sight, that he truly takes in the world around him, the suffering far beyond his own. The abyss is a fence he peaks over as he walks the winding corridors, the ones he’d once walked with apathy and vague discomfort, and senses the cold and arcane chakra that’s made its home in the walls caging them all in; and sees it for the death that it is with such a disturbing clarity that cannot be described or gauged by the human tongue. 

His feet find him further down the left-wing, a testament to the horrors that one man could inflict, that for so many years Sasuke could hear the treble and moans of the man’s victims from so far down and so far away. 

It strikes him then that he has been a pliant mule with its belly exposed to the bladed pendulum edging ever closer to slice him open and spill his guts onto the floor. Complicit, perhaps just as guilty, For ignoring these atrocities in the name of power, under the false guise of ignorance. Had _made_ himself ignorant when he knew what would become of less fortunate children who entered these halls, seeing them once and then never again. He had known but he hadn’t _really_ known. Does that make it worse? How was he any different from Kabuto or Orochimaru or Itachi?

Was Sasuke not a righteous man set on a righteous path? Do righteous men not do righteous things? How could he call himself an avenger set on ridding the world of the tyranny of evil men without paying heed to the victims of that tyranny? How could he avenge his clan and not in the same breath uphold the ideals his clan believed in?

His hands grip the bars of a man’s cage, crude yet strong. The man sits in a crouch, back bent and head down, the tail of his spine flexing. Sasuke’s shadow-filled in the sliver of light from the torches on the wall.

“What do you want,” the man asked, voice gruff like sawed wood. 

Sasuke’s eyes took him in, the shock of white hair and skin stretched over a gaunt face, skin so thin that it kissed his bones like a lover. _What powers dwell in such a sickly looking man’s blood-_ he wonders, _for Orochimaru to keep him alive for so long?_

“I want to help you,” he says despite himself, despite his better judgment. 

There was always the chance that there was one more thing to learn, one more edge over Itachi to gain before he enacted his justice. Not anymore, not after what he’s seen. Men have tried to kill Orochimaru for less. 

“I want to help all of you,” he says louder, this time, like a fool. His voice echos and fills in the silence of every condemned cell. But none of Orochimaru’s shinobi come to confront him, Kabuto doesn't reveal himself. The medic-nin would love nothing more than to see Sasuke face the full brunt of Orochimaru’s ire; felt the sannin was too lenient with him. 

The man looked up at him with mad beady eyes, bloodshot and dry. “Why do you care for us now? You have never cared for us before. You walked among them, beside them, out there, and never looked our way. Never wanted for anything. You are the prince of this hellhole, and this is the kingdom you will inherit,”

The other prisoners lean against the bars of their cage, hearkening to hear, but silent, just as eager for his answer.

“I know I showed no empathy and for that I am regretful,” he’d been so caught up in his own misery that he’d suppressed the horrors around him to little more than shadows stretching on the wall, fleeting and easy to look over. “I want to set you free, I want to set you all free,”

“And how will you do that? Do you know how many revolts I’ve seen rise and fall in these very walls? You’ll trip over your own blade,” he talked as though he were a man of forty, but Sasuke’s skillful eyes can see the youthful man he’d once been. Now he looked like a man twice his age, hair white with shock and face as gaunt as a corpse, like that limb-twisted blue girl. 

“I will set you free,” because he will. Because he is not a monster. When he leaves, he will not leave them to this fate. 

* * *

Sasuke had not known how he was going to do it, just that he would. And then a blessing came. Or a curse, in his eyes at least. For the world has the funny way of pulling him back in when he so desperately wants to pull away.

* * *

The night was young and the moon bright. It cut across the dark forest floor in slivers of silver, one of the few forests in a land riddled with rice fields. Sweat dried on his warm skin and the wind slinked beneath his clothes. The throbs and aches that’d once accompanied him after long hours of training ceased to be, and so, quite languidly, he allowed himself to rest against a tree, his sword at his hip and ears alert.

So when the bushes decided to rustle and his shadows decided to make themselves known, he was ready. But there would be no need.

“At ease,” Takerio spoke with a smirk. “Long time, no see, Uchiha,”

Sasuke loosened his grip on his weapon. “Long time no see,” he repeated. “I thought you were dead or worse,”

“What’s worse than being dead?” the other youth joked, and Sasuke almost smiled. 

They both knew there were worse things than death.

“You came,”

“You summoned me, and I still owe you. So, you're going to kill Orochimaru,” Takerio stated. It was never a question of if he would but when. Perhaps the older youth had seen it in his eyes, all those years ago, or perhaps it was common sense. 

“Soon,” Sasuke answered.

Takerio’s smile widened. “Good. I want in. And so does he.”

That’s when the other figure approached. A man cloaked in black, with an orange mask twisted in a spiral. It reminds him of the disfigured faces dwelling in Orochimaru’s lab.

The pale smile of the moon cast the masked man’s shadow on the ground twenty feet tall, a heralding of death itself. They regard each other with thinly-veiled distrust, one gleaming red eye focused on two. 

* * *

Orochimaru has long ceased in the ritual of locking Sasuke’s door, once he’d been assured that the young Uchiha would not runoff. Since then, Sasuke has found many ways to escape the confines of the hideout without notice. 

The ramifications of this action make it easier to slip out and plan. 

Takerio and the masked man take to hiding out in those complex and elusive tunnels beneath the ground, where Takerio has a garrison of soldiers stationed, all composed of the shinobi and ex-experiments who he used to ward over. The fact that they hadn't banded together to slit Takerio’s throat is a testament to their loyalty and trustworthiness. 

“You have to talk to people,” Takerio jokes, “An activity you don’t like to partake in unless you're trying to swindle some information out of somebody,”

The masked man scoffs. “Then that means you’ll have less of a chance of swaying Orochimaru’s shinobi to your side. Did you think about the long term at all when you first got it into your head that you wanted to kill your master?”

Sasuke grits his teeth, “I don’t need a lecture from a masked freak,”

The masked man enjoys pointing out his flaws and imperfections, and Sasuke likes to do so in turn. He wants to ask Takerio where the man came from anyway.

Takerio shakes his head and brings their attention back to the map. “We’ll have a unit come in from the west, which leads to an opening joined in with the shinobi quarters, while another unit will lead the front. One unit will be led by me, the other by Tobi, who’ll free the prisoners and give them weapons,”

Sasuke looked up to see the masked man looking at him intently. “I’m guessing that’s you,” he drawled.

“And what will you be doing, Uchiha?”

Sasuke straightens up with a pointed glare. “I’m going to kill Orochimaru myself,”

He waited for the underestimation, the insults. None came. “I suppose you know his weaknesses best,”

“Yeah,” Sasuke agrees. “I do.”

* * *

He knows he’s being followed by someone. The few next times he slips out he selects different locations to meet the masked man at. The man always knows how to find him. Takerio spends most of his time preparing his men, showing them the ins and outs of the tunnels of this specific territory. Meanwhile, it is just Sasuke and the man, and their plans of deceit to fool whoever thinks their stealth is up to par with his.

It’s hard to concentrate though when he remembers the shine of red that’d peaked from behind that mask. He was tired of ignoring the elephant in the room.

“Tell me why you have the Sharingan,” it’s not a question, it's a command. He wants to know, he will know.

The man only tilts his head and says, “Why don’t you ask Konoha?”

Sasuke feels his blood curdle, feels something inside of him go numb. “What are you insinuating?”

Because when he thinks about it, really thinks about it, there were no funerals, no bodies to bury. Where had they gone?

The masked man’s single eye crinkles into a smile, and something about the gesture is oddly familiar. “I insinuate nothing,” 

The younger man could feel his patience running thin. “You know something about my clan,”

“Let’s focus on the person who’s been tailing you for the past few days instead, yes?” The masked man takes a kunai and without even turning away from Sasuke sends it flying into the bushes. There’s a shriek and a tumble. “Come out. Now.”

They do.

It’s a boy, perhaps a year younger than Sasuke, and by the clothes he’s wearing, he’s one of Orochimaru’s.

“I don’t mean any harm,” he promises, eyes wide. How had such a creature survived with Orochimaru? He looked like an average shinobi at best, and when he felt for his chakra it was little more than a candle in comparison to the great inferno of his own.

Sasuke yanks the boy by the collar and pulls him closer to the kunai in his left hand. “Why were you following me?”

The nameless boy shudders slightly, his hands gesturing in a placating manner. 

“It’s not what you think-”

“Oh, it isn't?” Sasuke sneered. “If you had good intentions you would have approached me earlier instead of spying on me. I hope you know all the information you’ve been giving Orochimaru is false. Perhaps I should send you back to him to face his wrath when he realizes you were wrong,”

“No, really I want to join you! Please!”

Sasuke considered the boy for a moment, weighing his choices.

He could let the boy live and hope that he wasn't being deceived or he could kill this boy, in the chance that he was being deceived, before the boy could ruin their plans and put everyone's life in jeopardy. 

The masked man must have sensed Sasuke’s indecision.

“Kill him,” the masked man urges. “He’ll ruin everything. He’s a loyal lapdog, brainwashed and subservient with fear. He’ll go running to Orochimaru. Your plans will be foiled. Think of the other innocents that will be killed or tortured and mutilated. Weigh his life against theirs-”

Sasuke slits the boy’s throat just to make the masked man stop talking. He does it before he can quite stop himself and it comes as a surprise, this impulse. It shocks him, horrifies him even. 

The boy drops to the ground like a bird with a broken wing, and grips at his wound in vain, eyes wide like a heifer calf that’s just been put to the slaughter. The wound weeps, staining the brilliant white of his shirt red.

_Protect the weak, defend the weak_ , his father had always told him.

* * *

The murder weighs on his mind as the day of the revolt steadily approaches. Because Orochimaru doesn't seem to suspect a thing, still suspended in the illusion that he will soon have Sasuke’s body.

So when he happens upon another group of boys he ignores the masked man’s warnings. They’re the same stock and flock of the boy he’d murdered. Wide-eyed and green in a way that Sasuke isn't. His boyish innocence had been robbed of him a long time ago.

“Please don’t hurt us, we only want to help,” the tall and lanky one with brown hair speaks up first.

Sasuke nods. He does not want to listen to the masked man this time.

“What happened to our friend? He wanted to join you after overhearing you talking to one of the prisoners.... we all do. Want to join you that is,” the boy is nervous but certain at least, in his convictions. “It was hard work convincing us, but he wanted to do what was right. We debated and debated and decided that we too would fight to overthrow Orochimaru. But our friend, he went searching for you, did you see him? We’ve been searching for him for days,”

He stares at the boys. The tallest among them, the one with the bright orange hair, and the one with the silver eyes framed with glasses. They must have been good for something, for Orochimaru to keep them around. Perhaps, it was intelligence. A Shinobi force needed that just as much as they needed able-bodied warriors with brute force and strong chakra. Or maybe they were just cannon fodder, something to fill in the lower ranks of an army. 

For so many years these faces blended into the background. He’d ignored them. Shadows he’d called them, blurred images he cared nothing for. They were as real as ever now. Sasuke shook his head and carried the burden of the truth in his heart.

“How do we know we can trust you,” Takerio interrogated. Sasuke was glad he was here this time.

“It’s simple. The fact that we’re even speaking to you and not reporting you to Orochimaru is proof enough. We know that he dislikes any subordination, real or imagined. He’d kill us just for speaking to you if he ever found out,”

Yes, that made sense. So why had he killed that boy? The masked man chuckled and as the boys looked on in puzzlement. Even Takerio seemed disturbed. But only Sasuke knew what the joke was. 

“Perhaps Orochimaru is already onto us and your friend is dead,” Sasuke lied, “All the more reason to act quickly,”

Takerio had his men in the tunnels, shinobi, and ex-prisoners alike that’d lived beneath his direction and trusted him. Sasuke thinks they killed everyone else (the ones who objected) at his hideout, the wisest course of action in that scenario. And now they plan to do the same here.

How many more innocents would Sasuke kill? The shinobi he could have swayed to his side had he not callously ignored them or written them off. He loathed this, this intense guilt. Felt like it would follow him everywhere for the rest of his days. 

“This is the way of the world,” the masked man whispers, “Many innocents die in the name of a good cause. Think instead of those who you will set free,”

* * *

The valley of darkness. The righteous man. The shepherd. The tyranny of evil men.

Three shadows slide across the walls with a purpose in their hearts and a common goal to see it through. 

* * *

Sasuke spares any he can. _Join me or die_ , he says. _Fight for a man he would sooner see you dead or fight for your freedom._

Sometimes they chose him. Sometimes they didn't. And when they didn’t...they died. The masked man made sure of it. 

He feels the blood on his hands as though he struck the blow himself. Though the masked man is right, _think of those that you will set free and the burden of killing becomes easier._

He thinks of the girl with the twisted limbs and blue skin, the man in the cell who looked twice his age, the children who came in once and never appeared again. Sasuke doesn't see the people he kills, just the ones he’s trying to bring to salvation.

* * *

Ouroboros, a snake consuming its own tail. Doomed to forever be the rope on the gallow that it hangs itself on. 

The tunnels beneath the lands that led to every hideout was the gallow, the people trapped within the hideouts were the rope on which Orochimaru hung himself. Sasuke was simply the hangman. 

The blood on the floor was as thick as wax and the silver of his sword was painted a full red. The cages were open and empty, and the prisoners that’d been trapped within stood as tall as any freeman, their blades wet with the men who’d kept them locked in the dark for so long. 

Then there were the men Takerio had brought along from the hideout he was warding over; the prisoners he’d conspired with before killing all of Orochimaru's shinobi stationed there. This is a fantastic tale, perfectly crafted.

The masked man did not stand among them, only in the shadows, in the dark, unseen and unheard. Just like he wanted. He’d had one job. Open the cages and give them weapons. He did his job well.

They all look at Sasuke, shock on their faces as clear as day. In his left hand is the sword and in his right is Orochimaru’s unseemly head. 

“This is his namesake,” he says and they listen. So many faces, some as brown as the earth, some as pale as snow, from lands he couldn't place the names to. They listen as he says, “A snake eating its own tail. He wanted to consume so much of the world that in his arrogance of doing so, he ended up consuming himself,”

_Savior_ , they began to whisper. _Hero._ Sasuke is neither of those things.

He couldn't help but get a distinct feeling that the masked man was smiling.

* * *

What do we do now? That had been the question that followed him around for days. What do we do now?

Sasuke knew what _he_ needed to do. His main objective has always been Itachi, finding Itachi, killing Itachi. It’s been the main constant in his life and he plans on seeing it through. He’s already selected members of a team to help him track his brother. 

The masked man approaches him the night before his departure and Sasuke steels himself for the same debate he’d had with Takerio days prior. 

“They want to follow you,” the man says, but there’s no emotion behind it, no passion. It’s just a statement, a fact. “You killed Orochimaru after all. None of them had thought you could actually do it. When they were set free, when I placed those weapons in their hand, they did not fight with the hope of ever seeing tomorrow, could not conceive the idea of living in a world with Orochimaru dead and them free. But you did what no other could. They want to follow you, you’d be a fool to throw that opportunity away,”

Sasuke scoffs. “I don’t care for silly power games. I already have a purpose,”

“But you cannot deny that you have a penchant for inspiring people,” the masked man countered. 

Sasuke doesn’t see why. As Suigetsu said, he did what any of them would have done given the chance. It was only a matter of time and if it hadn’t been Sasuke it would have been someone else, probably Takerio himself.

“What happens after you kill your brother?” the masked man asked suddenly. 

Sasuke gripped the hilt of his sword. “How do you know about that?”

“I know a lot about you, Sasuke Uchiha. Things that you don’t even know about yourself. And things about your brother as well,” the masked man pressed in closer, the shadows growing around him. 

He felt more dangerous than Orochimaru, somehow. A thick suffocating danger that bordered on killing intent. Though not toward Sasuke, not entirely. Maybe it was the world that he hated and everything in it.

“I ask you again, what happens after you kill Itachi?”

No one had asked Sasuke that before. He hasn't even asked himself. But he knows that Itachi is strong, always has been, and that he’ll have his work cut out for him when he finally does confront his brother. It can either go one of two ways. With Itachi prevailing and Sasuke dying, or both dying. 

“Death,” he answers and the masked man chuckles. 

Sasuke draws his sword and aims straight for his heart. The sword pierces the man’s chest hilt deep, and further still, until Sasuke is gliding through him. The shock of it chills his blood.

“All your life you've lived for this one purpose,” the man continued, unbothered. “But what happens when you're finished? Revenge is a bittersweet fruit. You consume it too fast and it’s gone before you can even savor it. You’ll kill your brother, and when the drive that kept you going for so long dies, so too will you. You’ll be a ghost, a hollowed-out shell of a being. So before you work yourself into an early grave, do this first. I’ll even help you get there, to that early grave you yearn for,” the silence between them stretched and stretched.

Sasuke sheathed his sword and spun on his heel to face the masked man. “Do what first?”

“How long do you think it will be before word of Orochimaru’s death gets out?” he began. “Soon these lands will be up for grabs just like every other small nation, and the people who dwell in them, including the people who want to follow you, the ones who have never known any other home since the day they were stolen, will be vulnerable.”

It made sense in a way. Orochimaru had so thoroughly monopolized the land that had once been a country of its own, Daimyo and all, that his death was sure to cause a power vacuum. What’s to say Iwa wouldn’t swoop in and claim it? What’s to say he wouldn’t be indirectly replacing one slaver for another?

And who’s to say he could go up against one of the five great nations? It is said that Iwa’s military is five times that of Konoha’s and better equipped in every way. Especially after years of mining Canyon and the disputed land for ore. What was a small group of renegades against that? He estimated that there were about a thousand of them, two thousand at the most. The only reason why they even have those numbers is because they skillfully attacked every hideout there was, accepting all who wanted to join and killing the ones who didn’t. And still, it wasn't enough.

“We don’t have the numbers, “ Sasuke said at last. 

“Oh,” the masked man laughed. “But you do. They’re in the land of Canyon and the disputed land, within the villages and nomadic clans that have been trampled upon. Those are your numbers.”

* * *

Convincing people to fight was a hard thing when they had much to lose. Such was the case with the villages of Canyon and the nomadic clans that roamed the disputed lands. 

Most of them ignored the newly found movement of renegades’ request for aid, but one leader, Kyōkage (or Kyōkokukage) Azuri Yan, decided to humor them. 

(“The only one with a spine,” Suigetsu had remarked snidely.)

“I struck a deal with Iwa, an unspoken deal,” she’d explained. “We’d let them do their business and stay out of the way, and they’d stay out of ours. You see, we’re one of the few shinobi villages here, and they suspected that if we rallied against them then the others would follow, and even the non-shinobi villages would feel emboldened to support us. But the truth is we don’t know if they would. However, if we had more manpower, another force backing us I think that they would. This is why I want to join you. Though the hard part comes in the form of actually convincing the other leaders to follow suit,”

That’s where Sasuke found himself now. In a long hall filled with more than a thousand people and another five hundred surrounding the building. There was a great echo of shouts and debates and bickering bouncing off the walls. No one could reach an accord on whether or not they should join the renegades’ fight in pushing out Iwa or remain unseen.

It was only a matter of time before he grew fed up with it. “If you don’t fight now you’ll be walked over forever,” he spoke and somehow his voice managed to silence theirs. “Orochimaru is gone. I killed him. So you won’t have to worry about a foe from the east but what about a foe from the west? You worry about remaining unseen by Iwa but the only reason why they’ve been so cordial with you is because they feared conflict with the Sound Village would only alert Konoha of their actions. With no competitor, Iwa will only act more ruthlessly. It’s only common sense then to rise up against your subjugators. Be the conflict they wish to avoid and they will leave you alone,”

A tall burly man stood, “And how do you suggest we do that? Iwa is powerful-”

“And for a nation so powerful they’re also cowardly. They’ll do anything to avoid conflict with Konoha,” he lied. Perhaps Iwa was cowardly, but most of their subtly had something to do with keeping Konoha in the dark. “Which means, that if we were to join forces to push them out, they’d leave,”

That was a bold claim, one he’s not sure if he can back up. _One of them will call my bluff,_ he hoped, _and then no one can say that I didn't try to do what was right_. 

“If what you say is true,” the man spoke after a long bout of deafening silence, 

“Then my people will join forces with yours as well as the Village Hidden in the Canyon,”

And all it takes is one to join before the rest follow.


	13. and being young and dipped in folly; I fell in love with melancholy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he wanted to make this place hell, she would make it hell with him.
> 
> Every blow felt like fire upon her skin, a terrible addiction.
> 
> Each impact felt like crashing oceans, felt like the moon coming down to shatter the earth, felt like worlds colliding.

In three years alone she feels like she’s aged about ten. 

The council chamber currently mimics a scene from two years prior, because two years prior upon hearing the increasingly worrying reports about Iwa’s mobilization in the northern eastern territories near the Land of Earth’s borders, Danzo demanded that the jinchuriki be returned to Konoha immediately.

Naturally, Tsunade bypassed this request but it hadn’t been easy. The politics of a hidden village was deadly business, and it’d been so long since she had to navigate this viper’s nest, and somehow she still fell into the pit of snakes.

It is a rare thing to call upon the jonin council to settle a decision with a unanimous vote but it happens when the Hokage and their selected advisors cannot reach an accord. It’s a scare tactic if nothing else, with the fear that the support you imagined you had from your people was little more than smoke and mirrors, rendering your title a formality. 

It was a way to demonstrate the extent of one party's support and call the other’s bluff, to make them cave and avoid that possibility altogether. But it was a double-edged sword. Had she rejected Danzo’s request to use the jonin council he would have seen it as a sign of weakness and uncertainty in her own rule. She could hear him now, spreading lies and rumors to make that reality real. 

_Perhaps our Hokage simply doesn’t trust our esteemed council’s judgment_ , he would say to them, _nor does she have much faith in your faith in her._

Instead, she’d taken him up to the challenge, a decision that could prove to be just as fatal. 

In the end, the jonin council had favored her side, and a unanimous decision had been made, the votes cast, and the argument settled. Jiraiya of the Sannin would continue his training of the jinchuriki, and the training mission itself would be extended by two years due to the threat of the Akatsuki and the possible conflict with foreign sovereignty in the future. She’d repeatedly reminded them of this threat and the rumors of a possible war, the conflict between Iwa and Sound, their own past invasion at the hands of the latter, and the villages who are rumored to be without their jinchuuriki. 

_They’re down on soldiers_ , she’d told them, _Konoha isn’t what it used to be._ _How bad would it be if Konoha lost their own because they wanted to put all their eggs in one basket? Brining the Jinchuriki back will only make the Hidden Leaf more susceptible to attack. How many times must our sovereignty be threatened before we realize we must exercise some form of control and deception?_

The blame had been subtly laid at the past administrations’ feet, the administration who’d looked on at her insult with displeased wrinkled faces. 

She’d played on the council’s fears well, taking the intel Jiraiya had given her, and weaving stories out of their worst nightmares. War, carnage, death. Shinobi are immune to these things, yes, but they still fear them, and if not for themselves then for their children. Especially Shikaku Nara, whose own son was now a chunin of decent caliber. She’d seen it in the man’s eye that he knew should they not take precautionary measures to avoid catastrophe, his son would be at the heart of it, _again_. This thought had resonated with all of them, she thinks.

Oh, yes she had played on their fears well.

The thing is though, Danzo knows how to play on those fears too, maybe even better perhaps.

So here they sit, in the council chamber as they did two years ago. Their faces smoothed over like a washed stone, grave and serious. Everyone has their own copies of the recent reports Konoha has received. Tsunade had wanted these reports private, but somehow, someway, they became public knowledge among the shinobi population within Konoha and the fear was as real as ever. There was so much one could manipulate with fear. 

She tries to hide the murder in her eyes, and everyone feels this anger. Danzo is pleased with himself, back as straight as ever and eyes as sharp as a hawk. Her clenched fists pop and groan in restraint. 

She breathes through her nose. Control, she chants, control. 

“There was an attempted kidnapping of the newly made Kazekage, Gaara of the Sand, during an inauguration ceremony at Sunagakure,” she begins. “ It is said that the offender was staved off by the newly elected Kazekage with the help of Jiraiya of the Sannin and his pupil, Naruto Uzumaki, the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, both of who were in attendance for the inauguration ceremony. Sources believe this kidnapping attempt was made by no other than the Akatsuki organization-”

“Who have grown in abundance,” Danzo cuts off. “My own sources tell me that there is a strong possibility that numerous bases dedicated to the organization are scattered across the nation. What do you suppose we do about this, Lady Hokage?”

Tsunade doesn’t hide the glare she directs at him. “You obviously have your own ideas Lord Danzo, so why don’t you stop playing this game and say it already,”

He ignores her clipped tone and does just that. “ Lady Hokage, you yourself have reminded us numerous times that war is nigh. And despite our disagreements, this is something we can agree on. The Akatsuki becomes bolder every moment we don’t publicly recognize them as a threat. Already they’ve attacked one of our allies, how long before they attack us? Then there is the problem that comes in the form of Iwagakure mobilizing their military and the resistance toward Iwagakure’s occupation of the northeast by the radicals who have set to attack any shinobi that comes across their path,”

Yamanaka perks up to add, “I’ve heard rumors about the radicals being led by no other than Sasuke Uchiha, is that true?”

Tsunade brows twitched ever so slightly. She had heard those rumors but hadn’t wanted to feed into them. Though perhaps she would have been better off informing them about it to at least have _some_ measure of control over the growing case against Sasuke Uchiha. This would do nothing but further estrange him from the Leaf, regardless of the rumors being heedless or not. He can no longer be classified as a victim of brainwashing and kidnapping. After the death of Orochimaru, it is as clear as ever that Sasuke Uchiha is anything but a victim.

“I’ve heard these dreadful rumors as well,” Koharu says, tense. Worried, Tsunade realizes. Why would she be worried? “Could it be that-”

Tsunade clicks her teeth. She can’t let them do any more damage to the Uchiha’s name, for Naruto’s sake. “These rumors are worrying but until we have further intel on the whereabouts of Sasuke Uchiha we cannot make any baseless claims. Rumors are rumors,”

“And facts are facts,” Danzo counters with a sympathetic sigh, “Kumogakure is as silent as ever, which is worrisome on its own, but we must remember the disastrous Hyuuga conflict. Who’s to say they’ve let go of their ambition to seize one of our bloodlines for their own? The former Sound village was successful, Kumo may feel emboldened to-,”

“Get to the point already and stop speaking hypotheticals,” she grits out. Already his words were starting to take effect, the shoulders on every jonin growing stiffer and stiffer, their chakra swirling with unease and nervous energy, barely hidden from her perceptive sensing abilities.

“The point is, as a village and as a nation, we need to mobilize more than ever,” the silence is deafening. 

Everyone knew what that meant. Early academy graduations and fewer regulations on the graduate requirements, the increase of the military state backed by the Daimyo, more immediate emergency powers chomping away at the little freedom given in their society. And most importantly the undeniability of a fourth great war.

“No,” she responds curtly and heads swivel to look at her. “I will not follow a course of action that will lead us to war. I’m all about exercising caution but in the name of peace not in the pursuit of conflict. The moment we mobilize is the moment we unofficially declare war, and we don’t even know who we’re fighting against. The Akatsuki is as elusive as ever and despite your sources on secret bases how are we to confirm the validity of those claims or the sources in question? And who are we to suspect Iwagakure or Kumogakure of anything? Iwagakure has always been known for its neo-colonialism, and Kumogakure poses no current threat to us. Let’s not shoot in the dark here,”

“So you suggest we do nothing then?”

“No, I suggest more security measures along our borders and walls,”

“Then I suggest the council, both elder and jonin, employ our own special task force completely independent of your choosing, to ensure our satisfaction with these measures,”

Tsunade could hear her teeth grinding in her ears. Deep breaths, she told herself and relaxed into her seat, folding her arms. “Very well,”

“And,” the man added. “I suggest Konoha send a unit to retrieve the jinchuriki,”

“No,” she states bluntly. “Returning the jinchuriki so soon after an attack from the Akatsuki makes us susceptible for an attack, I’ve stated this before. The most I’ll allow is for a team to check up on the jinchuriki and one of _my_ choosing and on _my_ time,”

“Perhaps we should have the council vote on it instead then,” he gestures toward the many faces that look upon her, unreadable. 

This game again. _Damn him_ , she thinks, squaring her shoulders off. “Very well,”

They leave the room, both the elders and the Hokage, so that the discussion can be had and decisions made without the influence of either party. But this time is different from the first time. The first time the decision was unanimous, as it should be, but during unprecedented times it was possible for there to be division among the jonin council, and in such cases when even they couldn’t reach an accord the council went with the majority vote instead of a unanimous one. 

Such was the case this time. She thanks all the gods that it is in her favor but doesn’t allow herself to feel too happy about it. Because this vote is the heralding of the political struggle to come.

* * *

Naruto had never seen tensions so high in a village. The movement never ceased and the shinobi was as alert as ever. 

“This is what happens during a time of crisis,” Jiraiya explained. “It’ll be a long while before they know a moment of peace,”

The battle that’d preceded this was clear in her mind and the fear had been real. Those Akatsuki members had been this close to capturing Gaara and had she and Jiraiya not been there she knew her friend would have truly been gone. 

The single moment of ease that her friend had felt has all but disappeared and she was more likely to find him hurriedly leaving a meeting than anything else. She barely managed to snatch moments of his time and when she did, it was short-lived pleasures.

_So these are the duties of a kage_ , she thinks. Of course, she hadn’t really thought it’d be all fun in games, well, mostly fun in games, but she’d thought it would be more than this. Leaving and entering council meetings by turns, doing paperwork to sign off on decisions she wouldn’t have a direct hand in. 

Something about that didn’t sit right with her. 

“Don’t hold it against Gaara, Naruto. They’re debating on a course of action for the traitor,” Temari claims. 

They both stare at the double doors that close behind the new Kazekage and his council members. 

Naruto perks up in interest. “A traitor? I didn’t know there was a traitor,”

Temari nods grimly in confirmation, folding her arms with a displeased sigh. “Yes, I’m afraid there were many traitors involved with the attempted kidnapping. Though what separates this traitor from the rest is that he was one of Gaara’s most trusted advisors and staunchest supporters. Even debated the entire council when some began to object against Gaara becoming the Kazekage and made Gaara his pupil,” Temari shakes her head, and the disappointment is mutual between them.

Naruto knows what people are capable of after being manipulated by Mizuki, had learned that vipers could smile too, but _still_. She doesn’t know what she’d do if Iruka-sensei and Granny Tsunade ever betrayed her like that, or Jiraiya and Kakashi-sensei. Just the thought is too much to bear.

“Gaara and the council are deciding on what to do with them based on their crimes,” Temari continues, “He’s arguing for a life sentence instead of execution but the council feels he should make an example of them, to scare any would-be traitors,”

“And what about you?” Naruto questioned. “What do you think?”

The older girl grit her teeth, eyes sharp and hot, “I would like to agree with the council,” 

Naruto’s eyes widened. 

“But,” Temari adds, “There were others who probably agreed with the council when they wanted my little brother assassinated. And I can understand why Gaara wants to go easy on the punishments. Thanks to _someone_ , he believes everyone is capable of redemption, and he doesn’t want to rob them of that chance. Still, with the only man who ever backed him being outed as a traitor, and being left with a council where the majority is dubious about him at best, the wisest course of action will be to execute the traitors. Though, as a last resort, Gaara plans on reaching an accord with the council, where both interests are met, as is his prerogative,”

Naruto became filled with great unease. “And what’s in both of their interest?”

“A punishment that gives both the chance of life and death, with the traitors being sent to one of the most dangerous ‘spice’ mining companies in the Land of Wind, under a twenty-year sentence. Anyone who is sent there is as good as dead and the company would gladly accept prisoners. Prisoners equal free labor,”

The younger girl spluttered. “Now wait a minute isn’t that slavery?”

Temari only shrugs. “It’s either that or imminent death,”

The two teenagers stare at the council doors for a few seconds more before Temari nudges her along. “Let’s not hover about. Come on, we can visit Akari. She’s been asking after you since you got here,”

Naruto allows herself to be moved along, excited about meeting up with an old friend, but the possible contents of discussion happening within those council chambers weigh on her mind. 

* * *

The air was still.

Though it was more than just the air that had shifted, the entire atmosphere had grown frigid and cold, faces as though they were carved from stone and ice. In the yard beneath the balcony of the palace-like office where Gaara overlooked them all, the crowd stretched out so far back, that some had to rest against the gates. All were shinobi, some who had been injured in the battle that’d preceded this moment, and others wounded in less obvious ways. All in one day, they’d been invaded, their homes destroyed, and their loved ones lost.

She remembers just a few days prior, a celebration in the streets for the newly elected Kazekage who the populous was beginning to grow fond of. Under his unofficial rule, he’d restored peace and prosperity to his lands. The markets were thriving, the rivers and wells flowing, and the people without hunger. In a village-like Sunagakure, this was all that mattered.

_He’ll make a great Kazekage_ , she’d heard people whisper among cups of desert red wine, faces flushed with jubilance. Now their pallor resembled something paler.

In the end, it was decided that the traitors would be given a twenty-year sentence working in the Wind’s Great Mining Company, a company that specialized in the mining of a drug dubbed spice that was used for medicine and mass exported to the rest of the world. The conditions of the workers are rumored to be hellish, so back-breaking and soul-crushing, that the life expectancy of every worker is measured and divided in half upon their entrance. 

All traitors would be met with this fate, all except one Yūra, former advisor of the Kazekage and council member of Sunagakure’s esteemed council. In lieu of imprisonment, Yūra would be publicly executed, _hanged._

Naruto’s stomach flipped a bit at the thought. Gaara’s face was impassive, betraying nothing. Temari said that this man had guided Gaara on his path to becoming Kazekage and now he was to oversee this man’s execution. 

She didn’t want to be here, but Jiraiya had stated it would be expected of them, especially after their aid in protecting Sunagakure and its leader. 

Most would agree that this is a fitting punishment. The traitor conspired against the Kazekage after all and had been willing to hand him over to an enemy as mysterious and elusive as the Akatsuki, who would have done god knows what to him. And yet, as righteous as she could be in her fury, she didn’t think it was right. And if Gaara had fought against this decision, she knows he doesn’t think it’s right either. 

The fact that he’s doing it anyway baffles her. _To appease the council_ , she reminds herself. 

There’s something odd about them standing in a yard, awaiting the moment a man will be hanged in front of them. Even odder that a small group of people in a meeting room could decide a citizen’s fate and play god, regardless of his crimes. 

There was something barbaric about it, inhumane even. But the people want it, want their retribution, and they’re brimming with anticipation. So Naruto waits and watches with them, trying her best not to fidget. 

The man is walked out, from where she cannot even begin to guess, but the moment he appears the crowd comes to life, their solemnity discarded. It starts with light curses and grows into pained shouts and condemnations.

This is the man who conspired against them, who allowed some foreign foe to enter their walls and terrorize them. They’ve lost brothers and sisters and daughters and sons. Their anger is justified, she thinks, even when she doesn’t agree with how they seek to gain their justice. The anger is almost overwhelming, it feels as though it were her own, and in the depths of her mind, the Kyuubi lightly stirs, attracted to the stench of it like a shark to blood. 

A gallow has been situated a few yards in front of the building, looming ominously over the emblazoned crowd. It is a slow death march, walking by the people he had once served, onto the wooden steps ascending to the platform where he will stand his last. Death comes in the shape of a rope. The man stares at it, almost blankly as it is placed around his neck. 

Gaara raises a hand for silence and the crowd quiets down. “I feel there is nothing left to be said on the matter,” he begins, “But should the traitor wish to speak his last words, I will listen, and I encourage you to listen as well,”

The dead man walking stares into the crowd and in return the crowd waits. The quiet becomes deafening in its intensity. Perhaps they were expecting pleading and crying and repentance and forgiveness, all the things the guilty are infamous for. 

Instead, the man stands in quiet dignity. One second passes, then five, then ten. The crowd grows impatient; if he doesn’t plan on doing any of those things, then there’s no reason why he should still be breathing.

Gaara looks down upon the traitor, once a friend and confidant, with a face unreadable, before nodding at the hangman.

Death comes in the shape of the rope and the sickening snap that resounds across the yard to silence them all. 

In the end, grief and anger remain, and Yūra does not.

* * *

She finds Gaara in his solar on his lonesome, how she usually finds him after long days, and this one has been the longest thus far. 

“The beginning of my leadership is stained with bloodshed,” he begins, with a bittersweet smile, “Perhaps that is simply our lot in life,”

He leans against his balcony, overlooking the village. The moon is large and luminous in its beauty, streams of glow touching one half of his body and leaving the rest in shadow. She moves to stand beside him, tries to get a better look at his face.

“You mean as jinchuuriki?” she asks and he nods. She turns away, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Don’t say things that you know aren’t true. It’s not your fault, none of it is your fault. You can’t control the actions of other people,”

“No, I suppose I can’t,” he sighs and then regards her with teal green eyes, as serious as she’s always known him to be. “What would you have done today?”

Naruto frowns, she’d been afraid he would ask this. She answers anyhow. “I would not have executed him. I wouldn’t have cared about what the council wanted,”

“So you would have sent him to the mining company then? That’s just as good as killing him, with a much longer and extended death,”

“I wouldn’t have done that either,” she responds fiercely, “The traitors might be piece of shit human beings but they’re still human beings,”

Gaara sighs once more, “You’re not happy with my decisions,”

Naruto softens, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. It was a strange thing being able to touch him. When she and Jiraiya had first arrived the feat had seemed infeasible, and then Jiraiya had put her on the spot. _You’ve dealt with tougher seals than this_ , the old man reasoned. _You can handle this._

Handle it she did. Gaara had blessed her.

“To tell the truth I don’t know what I would have done,” she admits, “I can guess and guess but I’ll never truly know until I’ve stepped into your shoes. I never thought being a kage could be so...difficult.”

Gaara nods in agreement. “Neither did I,”

* * *

That night Naruto thinks about what it means to be a traitor and despite herself thinks about Sasuke. 

Jiraiya doesn’t say, but she knows that’s what the old man thinks of the Uchiha and she’s not silly enough to think that the sentiment will not be shared among the people of Konoha.

_Do we have a council too?_ , she wonders, _and what would they do to Sasuke?_

It was the first time she pondered on whether or not Sasuke returning would be a good thing. 

_I would protect him_ , she assures herself, _I wouldn’t let anything happen to him._

But the rope and the gallow is clear in her mind. Does Konoha have one of those too?

She shook her mind clear of it and instead focused on her bond, how warm it felt on her end and how cold it became on his, though a comforting cold, like ice on a burn. 

The mark on her right hand lightly pulsated with chakra, the only forewarning she received right before she drifted over to the next realm.

She opened her eyes, saw the collision of two worlds, complementary even in their duality, and a sky with more stars than grains of sand on the earth.

“Usuratonkachi.”

* * *

The name rolls off his lip, against his will. 

  
  


The markings on her surface, her speckled face, the sapphires for eyes, the honeyed skin and curly blond hair that falls to her chin, the limbs of her body that have grown longer and lovely with strength. 

(Not twisted or blue or rotten.)

He takes this all in, and against his better judgment, his Sharingan spins to life, the chakra pooling behind his eyes stronger and more intense in this realm. His vision has never been so perfect and clear.

“Why did you spare me?” This is how she starts off the first conversation they’ve had in three years, never one to beat around the bush.

“A whim,” he lied, only a whim. And he counts his blessings that she doesn’t remember anything beyond that, the kiss that he’d gently plucked from her lips.

"When we fought at the Valley of the End you said that our bond meant something to you," Her voice is sharp and accusing, covering the hurt she feels, the hurt she’s carried with her for three years without closure.

He's so close and yet so far. His face is still, cut from marble and as impassive as the last time she'd seen him. 

" _And?"_ He says and passes the word off so cavalier. 

"And now you say otherwise," she retorts, a fire building in her bosom. "Why do you lie?"

Sasuke blinks and then scoffs at her audacity. "I have no reason to lie,"

"I think you do."

"What would you know, Naruto," he spits, incensed and patience running thin with her. "I'm not that little boy anymore, but it looks to me like you're _still_ that little girl. You're living in the past. This bond is a nuisance to me and the sooner I destroy it the better,"

There's a knot in her throat that grows bigger and bigger, and for a moment it's hard to speak, hard to filter in any noise past her windpipe. For a moment he has robbed her of a voice, something she's always prided herself on having. 

"...really?" her voice is so thin and raspy, like sandpaper, and she tries not to wince at how broken she sounds or how much she'd like to start crying. _Crybaby,_ he used to tease fondly. Would he do it now or would he sneer in disgust at her weakness?

"Destroy it... so that’s the reason why you tried so hard to kill me-"

There's a flash of movement, so sudden that she barely tracks the shift of his body with her eyes. Sasuke stood before her, closer than ever, with his arm thrown over her shoulder, she could feel it’s solidness and warmth bleed into her. 

He leaned in close, so close that her scent still lingers on his upper lip. She feels warm, her chakra ebbing and flowing, bleeding into the fabric of his clothing. He feels her shortened breath upon his ear, her skin a hair’s breadth away from his. She grabs his arm in a vice as if to steady herself and something inside of him _clicks_ from her touch, that place tucked deep within his mind, where their detested bond resides. 

_"If I had wanted you dead you would be,"_ His breath is on her ear and he robs her of words again. When had his voice gotten so deep?

She laughs away the knot stuck in her throat and says, quite wryly, "Oh, it’s just that whim of yours, huh?"

_"_ Yes _."_ He moves again and in her peripheral, there's a shine of a blade and the cool edge of steel cutting her cheek. She jumps back before it does any more damage and fixes him with a glare.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Fight me, Naruto." He commands this of her, softly, as a lover might. There's that tell-tale determination in his eyes that's always rivaled her own and she knows what he means to do. Oh, how he wishes he could just cut down the red tether instead. He'll settle on her, though. 

Naruto growls.

"I know what you're trying to d-"

"Shut the fuck up and _fight!_ " he bellows and there is no reasoning with him.

She's weaponless and in her pajamas, evading his lethal blows. She doesn't have time to reason with him, he's making sure of that. 

He’s all fast and precise punches and kicks and deadly steel, linear in their execution and she’s like an animal (a cornered one), pure instinct and fluid movements. 

There are limits to this realm, and rules that can be bent. Just as his sword can materialize so to can her wind, sharp and biting against his flesh. His eyes widen in surprise ever so slightly, before he gains control over their little dance once again.

She imagines this is what it feels like to be in the shinigami's stomach. Battling for eternity. 

A night and a day pass in the span of a minute in the limbo, its sun rising and its moon shrinking into the heavens, moving in tempo with their steadily increasing speed.

Yes, this had to be what it felt like, to be trapped in the shinigami's stomach, condemned to an eternity of fighting. 

He was forcing her hand, hoping that she'd reveal her cards, hoping that she'd go all out and give in to her anger, hoping that the anger would turn into hatred for him. But she wouldn't give in. 

She would _never_. She doesn’t want to hurt him, she just wants to bring him back home.

(wherever that may be.)

He would pin her down and whisper _still to slow_ and her heart would leap into her throat before her chains chased him away. 

Sometimes he would press the flat of his blade beneath her chin, trail the point down to her heart between her breasts. Would pierce beyond the cloth and reach the skin there, enough to draw blood and smirk at his victory. 

"You sleep with that thing?!"

"Yes."

She just presses herself against the point of it, eyes fierce in her defiance. She’s daring him to go further, and he watches almost transfixed upon the sight of her back arching and her breast rising to the blade that dwells between their valley, dots of blood staining her shirt. He wouldn’t dare.

It’s a treat to see that smirk disappear into a frustrated growl. 

If he wanted to make this place hell, she would make it hell with him.

Every blow felt like fire upon her skin, a terrible addiction.

Each impact felt like crashing oceans, felt like the moon coming down to shatter the earth, felt like worlds colliding.

* * *

The once stark landscape had shifted into something unrecognizable, the light and dark smog was still there, but thicker and heavier and nearly touching whenever they made contact. Above them, it was like staring at a newborn sky, a strange kind of heaven that was both night and day. At war and out of balance, swirling with the rotation of the earth they created. The single hill, covered in shade and light, with the river beneath it, the left side frozen over and the right flowing freely. Winter and summer both reign at the same time. What a strange little world they have here.

He had thought he numbed himself, hardening his heart. It was as if she hadn’t changed at all. Still the same little brat she was three years ago. Still worming her way in. 

They were closer than they’d been in years. _I know you,_ he wants to say. _I know you inside and out. I can read you better than anyone else but you will never read me. And for that, you will always fail._

And yet they have _both_ exhausted themselves past the point of rising. Somehow he let himself fall back into this rhythm with her. He should have never yielded to the beck and call that was this bond, but it was so alluring sometimes. He couldn’t help but give in. It was preferable to the reality outside of it. The hell he had created for himself. 

Was it wrong to allow himself this piece of heaven to call his own?

He heard her shift onto her side to fully face him. Slowly he turned his head toward her. Her face was so close, he could feel her breath tickle his skin, as though it were real, as though they were in the flesh.

“Sasuke please…” her eyes had a way of holding you captive within their depths and holding you there forever. “You know what Orochimaru plans for you. He'll kill you. He wants to wear your skin. Are you just gonna let him?”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “No. Do you think I'm a fool? I've learned all I needed to learn from him. Orochimaru is dead. I killed him,”

The girl gaped in shock.

Sasuke feels a bit insulted. He wasn’t some victim. He’d always had things under control. 

“So- you're not going to...but then why-”

“ _Because,_ ” He bites out, and then more gently says, “Because that's the way things played out. I like to make people believe what they want to believe about me. It's easier to pull the rug from beneath them. You could learn a thing or two about deception, Naruto. You're so easy to read,”

She pouts at the insult and he feels a teasing grin touch his lips. For a moment they are suspended in time, both the children of the past and the adolescence of the present at once.

“You’ve gotten good,” he comments. 

“You fought me just to see how strong I was,” it’s more of a statement than a fact.

“Yes,” he answers, “But I can tell you were holding back. I advise you not to do that in the future _because I won’t_ ,” 

“I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to bring you back home.”

“...I know,”

It was strange how the conversation was between them, how it passed back and forth like a gentle tide. Expanding and contracting, advancing, and receding. 

He'd been brash and reckless, so lost in taunting her, so lost in convincing her to let him go, let their bond go, that he’d foolishly wrapped himself back up in its devious strings.

“You know even in here, you’re still so hard to read,” she says. That statement couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Despite her frustrations, she’d read him all the same, but Sasuke was, for the most part, a blunt person, he had no need for riddles and double meanings. 

He always means what he says when he’s speaking with her. It’s the things he won’t say that she tries to fish out. And if he wants to keep any form of control he has he’ll keep his mouth shut. Because he fears that one day she'll be able to read him as well as he reads her. Should that day ever come his resolve will break, he knows it. He'll fall to his knees and know that he's too weak, his resolve worn to dust, his heart weary of hatred. He'll forsake his duty to avenge his clan and-

The thought isn't even worth finishing.

He notes again that her face is so close. She smiles at him, eyes crinkling up like a flamed leaf. “I really missed you,”

Sasuke swallows the curse on his tongue. He missed her too.


	14. revolution is war; there is no war without bloodshed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the stretch of faces that fill the gallery of his mind only grow. How many has he killed by now? Fifty? A hundred? Five hundred? Would it ever stop, would it ever end? Killing these men to get to one, it’s nothing short of insanity. But he’s comforted almost by the guilt and disgusts he feels. It means he’s still human, it means he is no Itachi or Orochimaru.

It was late in the night, still and quiet. There was a hum of nervous energy that permeated the air but no one dared speak. Hiding within the trees gave them both advantage and vulnerability, they couldn't afford to alert the enemy of their proximity to the opposing camp. 

They relied on sign language instead, a skill they’d had to learn during their year-long campaign. Almost a year anyhow. Sasuke’s sixteenth birthday had come and gone. 

He’d read once, from one of the many books in his family's archive, that warfare was divided into three phases. The first was earning the population's support and trust whilst attacking the organs of a government. So he’d constructed an operation of liberating villages and towns from Iwa shinobi stationed there, starting from the north and upward while the Kyokage started from the south and downward. The plan was to squeeze Iwa out more than wrestle, like puss from a wound. The forces were split up into smaller divisions, one half moving east while the other moved west. A horizontal push. Then there was the aftermath of the battles he’d focused on. Most armies would probably up and leave but the wounded and the hungry were the keys to gaining that support and trust, perhaps even new soldiers to join the ranks. 

He’d provided food relief in the form of surpluses of rice from the Sound Village. He had Karin aid the sick, and when it was time to leave he left a squad of capable soldiers to rebuild the buildings that’d been destroyed and to ward off any bandits or criminals who’d want to take advantage of a vulnerable village.

That’s not to say he was always successful. That’s not to say there weren't times he failed, times where their forces arrived too late and the villages were rendered to ash and bones. In those scenarios, he had his troops respectfully bury the dead. 

( _Sasuke wants to abandon the whole thing altogether. This had not been his purpose, this had not been his path. The dreams were becoming too much._

_In his dreams, the corpses are not the familiar ones known to him. Of course, his mother is there, skewered, and his father gutted. But there’s also the twisted girl with the blue skin and holes for eyes, and the boy, gripping at his neck, face twisted in betrayal and hurt. **I only wanted to help** , he would say, choking on his blood. More and more would pile up until there was a wall of corpses standing between him and the shadow with the red spinning eyes. _

**_We’re not so different after all, are we foolish little brother?_ **

_Then the twisted girl with the blue skin would crawl to an immobilized Sasuke, flat on his stomach with his jaw wired shut. Her fingers like wire themselves, scraping against the blood-stained floor, thick as wax. When she reached him she would climb on top of his back and breathe cold scentless breath onto his cheek, mouth and jaw hinged wide open, a gaping elongated hole yawning and groaning her breath onto his skin, her wire-like fingers moving up and down his spine._

**_Fuck,_ ** _he thinks. He’s always getting swept away in things. But the guilt, the remorse, the things he’d tried to kill within himself, were as real as ever in the face of her. Of that blue face, and that gaunt man, and that **stupid boy**. _

_And the stretch of faces that fill the gallery of his mind only grow. How many has he killed by now? Fifty? A hundred? Five hundred? Would it ever stop, would it ever end? Killing these men to get to one, it’s nothing short of insanity. But he’s comforted almost by the guilt and disgusts he feels. It means he’s still human, it means he is no Itachi or Orochimaru._

_**Though you might be a masked man** , his mind whispers. **You might be a Tobi**. _

_Naruto stares at him, takes him in, and frowns in worry. He stops her before she can even voice her concerns. Instead, he confides in her, against his better judgment. He doesn't know what else to do, doesn't know who else to confide in. The people who follow him look at him and see a leader worth following, not an indecisive sixteen year old who’s only calling in life had been avenging his family, not the world._

_And in here, in this space between heaven and earth, where nothing outside of it can touch, is his only escape._

_So he tells her of the girl in the freezer, and the man in the cell, and the boy who’s throat he opened, and the villages he didn't make it to in time, the burned corpses that were left as warnings, left in mockery, left to spite him and demoralize his forces._

_“What do you think I should do?” he asks her._

_“What is right,” she answers, as though the answer were that simple._

_Sasuke grows agitated. “So give up on my purpose, forget everything that brought me here, to begin with?_ **_My_ ** _pain,_ **_my_ ** _vengeance-”_

_“No,” she interjects, “All I said was do what’s right,”_

_The rebuttal makes him scoff. What was right in warfare?_

_He takes steady breaths to calm himself, to rein in his anger, that moves within him like a caged beast sometimes._

**_Just do what’s right._ **

_He knows in his heart of hearts that to walk away from the thing he created, was no better than Itachi walking away from him._

_**To be or not to be**_ , Sasuke thinks, **_that is the real question. Is it more righteous to suffer outrageous fortune or to take up arms against every tyranny I come across, and by opposing, end them?_ ** _Sasuke thinks and thinks and then grows tired of his own indecisiveness._

_He misses when his view was narrowed and his path as clear as a fresh stream, tangible, and easier to navigate. Misses when killing his brother was the only thing that meant anything to him. And then realizes suddenly that it hasn't been the only thing that has meant something to him for a long time now._

_He curses_ ** _that man,_ ** _and he curses_ **_Naruto_** _too._

**_Just do what’s right._ **)

The second phase was escalating attacks against a government's military forces and vital institutions. In the real world that translated over as Iwa’s labor camps surrounded by and built onto mining grounds, where prisoners were forced to partake in the deathly task of underground and surface mining; digging up the precious metals Iwa coveted. It was the matter of infiltrating these establishments and planting explosives within the intervals of the infrastructure to cause chaos, and if they were lucky, set the prisoners free while destroying camps in the process.

Since the beginning of this conflict they’d been dubbed as terrorists, and even more so after the second phase but only to Iwa were the renegades’ seen in this light. 

After six months of the push and pull between the two opposing parties, the rebels' efforts started to catch wind and for a time, Iwa fell back. 

( _A bittersweet victory that had been. A moment's respite before running back into the fray again._ )

That was when he enacted the third phase, seizing bases prominent with Iwa shinobi. The third phase stated that the best way to assume control over a country was to resort to conventional warfare, which meant sieges and open field battles.

He remembers the first. The air had been arid with the smell of iron and smoke. The dirt soaked in blood. Each step had drawn the liquid to the surface, rising and falling in tandem with his feet. And the bodies...there had been so many, half of them from his side. They’d lost nearly a quarter of their forces the first time.

“It is the way of war,” the masked man explained. “There will always be highs and lows,”

But it was different somehow. The people that followed him had become more than numbers. From the shinobi such as himself to the freeman set from Orochimaru’s cages, to the nomads that’d roamed these lands for generations to the civilians who couldn't conjure up a fraction of chakra. He’d listened to them tell stories by the light of campfires to fill the silence, and sing songs in their mother tongue to ease the mood, had fought for them and had them fight for him in return, had shared food and drink from the same cup, had looked upon their sleeping forms or smiling faces or teary eyes and felt fear far beyond himself. Worry and fear _despite_ himself. He’s even started remembering their names, has familiarized himself with the sound of their voices. So many voices.

All fighting for a single purpose, a true purpose.

His revenge feels so small in comparison to this and yet it is something he holds onto. But they follow him still, without even knowing that his leadership will be a short-lived one. This is not his path. Someone else can take his place, Takerio perhaps.

_This is the last battle_ , he tells himself. He and Takerio had revised their strategy, had stripped it bare of any faults or weaknesses they could find, had discussed it over campfires with their troops.

They would come at the enemy from three sides. Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo would lead a division of a few hundred men that would serve as a deception. They’ll raid Iwa’s camp and draw the commander and his forces out toward the northern province where a forested valley dwells, the valley that his troops are situated in now. The hope is that the opposing force will be foolish and arrogant enough to be lured in, eager to crush a small force, only to run into a much larger one, led by the Kyokage Azuri Yan. Then Sasuke will outflank the Iwa forces from the east and Takerio and his forces will come in from the west. Some will remain in the trees to spray down attacks at targeted enemies. A great ambush. 

This battle could determine the fate of these lands and he was overcome with a sort of nervousness he had not felt since he was fourteen and plagued with a deafening ambiance.

He wonders what his father would have thought of all this.

The night grows darker and the moon is pale. A promise of more nightmares, more bloodshed, more woe. 

A signal is made and the battle begins.

* * *

The campaign had lasted nearly a year and six months. Sasuke is sixteen when he overthrows an imperial power. There is nothing quite like the shock of victory, the turbulence of relief that moves through a nation like a tide. 

( _“I’ve killed an innocent,” He tells her when all is said and done. He’s paces back and forth, and the storm at his back paces with him. “I’ve killed many innocents **to do what’s right**. Are you satisfied now? Or do you want more blood on my hands,” _

_She looks stricken, hurt, and a little shocked. “Sasuke…”_

_“I bet you think I’m a monster now,” and why does his heart plummet at the thought?_

_He needs someone to disprove these fears so he looks to her to do it, and when he looks to her... still, he wants her to disprove them anyway and she does just that._

_“No, I don’t,” she says earnestly, eyes fierce. “I saw a man hanged once. In everyone’s fear, he was hanged for treason. It was either that or some form of enslavement until death. They wanted to get rid of as many traitors as possible and put fear into any would-be traitors. Gaara oversaw the whole thing and gave every sentence. I still think he’s a good person. I think that people can be good and do bad things, even when the reasoning behind those bad things is justified. So, no, I don’t think you’re a bad person or a monster,”_

_“Oh really?” he scoffs, “Because the way you’re looking at me right now reminds me of a frightened lamb. It’s alright, you’d be one in many,”_

_At that, she marches up to him, enraged and it’s so liberating, cleansing, like fire._ **_Yes,_ ** _he thinks as she grabs him by the collar so that their faces are centimeters apart._ **Yes**. She stares into his eyes, her own the cut, shape, and brilliance of blue flames. 

_“Cut the crap alright,” she growls. “We both know you’re not a bad person and I’m the_ **_last_ ** _person who’ll ever be afraid of you. You saved so many people from that fate you saw in that freezer and- and you're saving_ **_more_ ** _people. I don’t have all the answers, I can barely figure out things about myself, but I know that you’re not a monster,”_

_She says it so passionately that he wants to believe, and for a time, a long time, he does.)_

He’d relied so heavily on the things he’d learned as a grieving boy rummaging through his father’s belongings, trying to remember the things he’d absorbed in a half daze. 

_A guerrilla army may increase the cost of maintaining an occupation or a colonial presence above what the foreign power may wish to bear._ He’d read this once, in his father’s books, the highlighter that’d marked it remained a fixture in his mind.

“I must say,” the masked man began. “I am quite impressed with you, Sasuke Uchiha,”

The current base they resided in was loud with celebration but Sasuke stood on his lonesome, leaning against a tree. 

“Why is that?” after all this time, Sasuke still didn't trust the man. He was like a dark phantom, appearing when he was needed and vanishing when he wasn't. 

“The chances of you actually prevailing were one in a thousand, and yet despite the odds, you prevailed,”

Sasuke frowned. “You put me up to this knowing there was a chance of failure?”

“Yes,” the man stated bluntly. “There is always a chance of failure in every endeavor one pursues. I wanted to see if you were worth claiming a life as valuable as Itachi’s. You are. So, if you still want it, I’ll help you reach that early grave you so desire. But I must reiterate, that you are a fool to leave.

“They want you as their leader of this little movement, I believe they’re calling it _the coalition_. They plan to join all three lands in an alliance and they’d have you lead,”

Sasuke knows this and has already talked it over with Takerio. He’ll be their leader instead.

_But if you ever choose to come back_ , Takerio said, _the role will always be yours_.

“That’s not my purpose,” and even then he has his doubts. “I leave tomorrow. Now tell me where _that man_ is and all his weaknesses,” 


	15. Chapter 15

Hello everyone! This is an author's note.

Lately, I've been dealing with a lot of things in my personal life. In the last month alone, I've had a loved one hospitilaized (and the stress and the fear were unimaginable), I've nursed them back to health, and I've moved to a new location. All of this happened simultaneously, mind you.

The thing is, I enjoy writing, and I enjoy the little world I've built up so far in this fic, however, my life is still adjusting, still changing, and when I write I want to give my undivided attention. I like to plan out things, create outline after outline, add scenario after scenario, and that takes time and patience, at least for me. I don't want to rush things or churn out chapters with no structure or purpose simply to have something out there, and the way things are going at the moment I can see that happening.

So, I'm wondering if I should either **a)** put the fic on hiatus before posting chapters once I know for sure that I've completed the **entire** fic _(plus I've already mapped out an outline on how things are going to go and I have a pretty clear idea on how this story will end)_ , **b)** do the same thing as **(a)** except delete the fic, revise the old chapters and add the new ones before posting it again once I know for sure I'm finished with everything, or **c)** just continue as before, which I don't really want to do but I'm still uncertain about the first two options. 

To be quite truthful, I've been feeling quite odd about fan fiction as a whole lately. I won't get too deep into it, but If I ever write anything that you feel is inappropriate, uncomfortable, or harmful to minors who might come across my work, **please, please, please** let me know. I'm still young (18) and I make mistakes, but I also want to learn from those mistakes. It's so easy to forget that I was once a young teen not too long ago, writing and reading things that I now see can be very disturbing for minors and how easy it is to be exposed to those elements or how others can expose you to those elements without ever meaning to.

I accept all constructive criticism and I encourage you guys to give me that, whether I might agree with it or not.

Anywho, I'm still deciding on what route I should take and nothing is final. I may feel one way and change my mind the next. And I really, really want to finish this fic and give you all my best. In the event that I do delete it, I encourage you all to download the story if you still want to hold onto it. I personally don't believe in orphaning stories. What's mine is mine, and I'm very possessive of the things I write, and I'm not too keen on taking my name off of it. 

Also, regardless of whether or not I choose any of those options, I want you all to know that I appreciate the feedback and support I've gotten. Thank you so much for your time and have a nice night/day!

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading a post on Tumblr, and it was all like 'imagine if naruto was biracial/black and said fuck the system and ran away from Konoha' and while I won't go entirely down that route that first tidbit got me thinking. And then that thinking got me writing. Before you know it I have a fem biracial naruto. Fem, because I love genderbending and biracial/black because I like the idea. I feel like it would fit perfectly with Naruto's character, and in a way, as a black person, I see a lot of myself in his part 1 self. The discrimination and isolation he dealt with resonates with me deeply. I remember going to predominatly non-black schools, remember how strange and awkward I felt because I wasn't like everyone else, I wasn't treated like everyone else, and I just didn't know or understand why. Not until I hit my teens. At first I was hurt, and I started hating myself a bit, internalizing everything society told me to hate about myself, and then as I got older, I became pissed the fuck off, realizing that it was society that had it all wrong. Unfortunately in canon Naruto didn't quite come to that same realization, but in this au he (or rather she) will. I guess you can say this is a bit self-indulgent but I hope you enjoy it to.


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